


That Heavenly Melody

by PuppyLuver256



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game), Splatoon
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, Technically?, Trans Dr. Boris Habit, but it's important enough to mention, crossover AU, flower shop au, habit's a shark and kamal's an octo, i think that's the right term, i'm a little more focused on the crossover aspect than the flower shop one, they don't even know each others' names until chapter 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-01-13 08:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21241163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppyLuver256/pseuds/PuppyLuver256
Summary: Boris Habit and Kamal Bora have led completely different and entirely unconnected lives, but all it takes is a single song to bring them together and live a life so much better than the ones they've known.





	1. Blooming Resurgance

_The chorus of Calamari County..._

_They say its melody might as well be carved into the DNA of every Inkling, young and old..._

_But could the same be said... for someone like Me? : - o_

\-----

Another night waking up long before the alarm. Boris Habit rarely slept well for various reasons, and one of those reasons just happened to worm its way into his subconscious and frighten him into waking. Again. To his credit, it wasn’t happening as frequently as it had been since he started seeing the therapist, but it was still too often for his liking. At least he wasn’t sleepwalking anymore. Even with the reassurance from his doctor that it was normal for sharks, apparently as some kind of evolutionary leftover from when they were confined to the ocean and several species had to swim while sleeping to keep themselves at their preferred depth, he wasn’t particularly fond of ending up dangling half off the apartment complex’s balcony because his night brain had taken the rest of him on a little evening excursion. It might’ve led to...something unfortunate. And he wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he would mind in the moment.

Groaning and rolling over, he knew he had to get his mind off this line of thinking. He looked around the room until he found the proper distraction sitting on the nightstand beside him, taking on the form of his likeness made in felt and stuffing. The puppet, a goofy self-portrait of sorts, even had little cartoony approximations of teeth like his own, though he’d only bothered to make the first row. It looked a little friendlier like that at least, if his personal experiences with his own rows and rows and rows had told him anything. He picked up his miniature doppelganger and shoved his arm inside, adjusting its placement on his arm slightly until it was in comfortable position. “Whamt has u upp soooo ear-lie, Boris?” he asked himself through the puppet, putting on the goofy voice that he felt was more natural for the thing. “Its’s onbly...” (he looked over at the alarm clock) “...for-thurty and you ‘need’ ur sleeps!”

“It’s just the nightmares again, Lil Habby,” he responded in his more natural tone. “Dr. Tanning said the healing process takes time, but I don’t know how long I can take when I get the bad frowlies, you Know that.”

“It’ll ‘B’ o.k. tho!” He had the puppet’s mouth open so that it gave the impression of a big happy grin. “Just got 2 get thru ev-er-yday, rember that thimgs will be ‘good’ sometime soon. And I’m am heer 4 U!” He took the puppet’s hand and patted his own cheek with it, then he hugged the arm his little copy was on with the free one.

Sometimes Boris thought this sort of thing was too childish, talking to himself via a puppet likeness of himself. Then again, he’d heard that this sort of thing was accepted in professional circles, if the whole trend of “rubber duck programming” was anything to go by, and his therapist _had_ encouraged him to get his feelings out in this manner rather than potentially pick up a more damaging coping mechanism. He carefully removed the puppet from his arm, placing it back in its usual place on the nightstand, fixing its little coat and giving it a light pat on its head. “Thamk you, friend,” he said with a small smile. “Glad we had this talk.” He got up, went to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, and soon returned to bed to try and get back to sleep.

Hopefully this wouldn’t affect him at work in the morning.

\-----

Of course, even with the beeping of cash registers in one ear and the whirring of machinery in the other theoretically being enough to keep someone’s brain engaged, Boris could barely hold his eyes open. He’d taken this job at the hardware store years ago because they'd been the first one in the area to have a garden section at the time, that and the career path he’d gone to school for was definitely not what he wanted to do with his life, but even so he hadn't been all that lucky as to get placed in that part of the store. Working the paint counter wasn’t too bad in comparison, at least. He got to watch little spurts of color drop into the colorless fluid in the shelved cans and swirl around until they eventually filled the whole can with whatever brilliant hue they were meant to be. They went through a lot of beige, he never understood why so many people wanted _beige_ of all colors when they had such a vibrant range of _whatever_ you could imagine, but when someone ordered one of those brilliant shades he got almost as excited as he had done whenever he had been with his–

“You okay, Habit?”

Boris jerked his head up with a start, looking up to see his manager Matt. He could never settle on whether he refer to the guy as just “Matt” or “Mr. Gould”, because despite his position of authority over him and should probably be addressed in a way that reflected that even in name, the Inkling man was at least ten years younger than he was and he couldn't help but think of him as someone to be looked after rather than someone who was in charge. “Yes, I’m fine, I just...” He couldn’t stifle the inevitable yawn long enough to finish his sentence, so he just let it out, taking care to hide his many rows of teeth from any passing customers to avoid unnerving them. “I did not sleep well last night. ...Again.”

“Maybe you should go ahead and take lunch,” Matt suggested. “Get some food in ya, maybe that’ll help. And y’know, saying this as a friend rather than just a manager, my mom has this sleepy tea that I could bring around for you sometime if you wanna try it.”

He wanted to tell Matt that it wasn’t _getting_ to sleep that was the problem. He wanted so _desperately_ to reach out to someone about all his past troubles outside of the context of Dr. Tanning's office, especially to someone who was already offering a hand. But he couldn't do that to someone who might as well be a kid compared to him. Instead he just said, “Taking lunch sounds good.”

Grabbing his lunch bag from underneath the counter, Boris took his leave with a tired yet friendly wave. Technically employees were supposed to take their lunches in the employee break room, but so long as they didn’t disturb customers or leave a mess for other employees to clean up it was generally understood that they could eat wherever they felt comfortable and not get chewed out by the relatively chill management. As for Boris, he tended to take his lunch breaks in the garden department near the flowers. The organization for the flowers was moreso arranged strictly for the purpose of quickly getting them off the shelves and through the registers, but they still felt comforting to him. “Hello, ev-er-yone,” he quietly cooed to the flowers as he approached his usual spot on the display model bench. “How are you all doing today?” (The garden cashier was probably giving him that look again, that “god why does the weird old Sharkling keep talking to the merchandise” look that was a mix of confusion and annoyance with a little bit of pity. He forced himself not to glance over to try and confirm.) He sat down and started taking out his lunch, but then he happened to look up and noticed something that made him pause.

To anyone else, it was just a six-pack of soil-ready petunias. But Boris noticed one of the petunias had been allowed to dry out, neglected to the point where it had turned brown and crispy. He could’ve just been imagining it, but he swore he heard it cry out in a sort of parched voice that only he could hear.

_w at er pl e a se_

The dam broke. Whether this poor flower’s fate really was as devastating as it felt in the moment or if it was just a normal sadness compounding upon both his sleep-deprived state and having had to relive his trauma in his nightmares the night before, it didn’t matter as the tears started flowing, a veritable deluge of emotion. Everything else was a blur of literal obscured vision and a muddied mental state, he felt himself being led somewhere as he sobbed and wailed. Something was probably being said, but he couldn’t hear it well enough to understand exactly what it was. Before he knew it, Boris was in the break room, a hand patting his back gingerly and a bottle of water held out toward him. “How lonmg was I cryibgk this tim?” he asked, taking the water as he rubbed at his still moist eyes.

“Five minutes, I think,” Matt said. The garden cashier must’ve called him over when they noticed his breakdown. “Geez, Habit, that’s the third time this month. Sure you don’t wanna talk about this...whatever this is?”

Boris shook his head. “I wouldn’t feel right dumping all 'this’ on you,” he said. “You don’t need that. Youbve probabaly got your own prom-blems to deal with, prob-ly wamt me to get back to work too...”

Matt sighed, his hand still on Boris’s back. “Look, I’m gonna tell you something a bit personal,” he said. “You remind me a lot of my uncle Rob. Real friendly guy, absolute teddy bear of a man. Hard worker as well, always kept himself busy and rarely took any time off unless it was to take his family on vacation. You wanna know what happened to Uncle Rob?”

“Happy retirement?” Boris asked hopefully, though even as he said that he doubted the real answer would be taken in a positive direction.

“Two heart attacks in a row from the stress of overworking himself, and the third heart couldn’t cover for the other two.” Matt hesitated. This was clearly still hard for him. “I just don’t want any more Uncle Robs on my watch, okay?” he asked. “You may not wanna discuss it with me, and that’s perfectly fine, but I can tell something’s eating atcha and I’m worried. Maybe you should take the rest of the day off. Y’know what, take off tomorrow and Friday too. Have yourself some mental health days.”

“Are you real-ly sure?” Boris asked. “But what if thimgs get crazy here? You might need all hands ‘on-deck’ or something...”

“You know the higher-ups are always on my case for ‘_over-scheduling_’ a decent functioning shift of workers, if anything they’ll say I should let the employees do this more often,” Matt said with a laugh. “It’s a slow time of the year anyway, y’know. So yeah, you’re cool to take off for the rest of the week, we’ll be fine. You can go home and de-stress, you could use it.” He stood up, giving Boris a smile that seemed to be partially out of pity. “You, uh, you okay to drive home yourself or...?”

Boris nodded. “I think I’ll be o-kay.” He stood up as well, making his way to the door. Before he left, he turned back to Matt and asked, “Would you please ask Carrie to ‘give’ those petunias extra atten-shion for Me?”

“I think she already got the hint,” Matt said. “But yeah, I’ll remind her.”

\-----

The first thing that Boris did when he got home was to flop down onto the couch. He knew doing that was a bad idea because he's always been told could lead to damage to his back fin, but in all honesty if it hadn’t done anything bad by now he seriously doubted anything would happen now. Then again, he was in his late 30s, that was when the weird body stuff started happening. Two and a half extra days all to himself, what was he going to do with this time? Generally he passed the time by keeping himself busy, but given what had happened today “keeping busy” probably wasn’t the best idea. He could partake in one of his hobbies, but of course that would probably count as keeping busy. Maybe he could go out on the town, but then again he didn’t have friends outside of work, and he surmised that they really only considered each other “friends” in the sense that they were friendly to one another and not really all that close. Or rather, _he_ wasn’t all that close. Did he just distance himself too much or did they really not want to associate with him more than they had to?

He had to get his mind off these thoughts. Traveling down that line of thinking wasn’t going to help him relax at all, and even though he assumed he was completely emotionally drained from the day’s events, he knew he never stayed that way for long. Though he did know of two things that could help him: music and his little puppet friend. He considering heading to the store and getting a third thing that “helped”, but Dr. Tanning had advised that he not indulge in that little molasses-y brain-numbing tool when in such a bad spot, and he held her advice in high regard. She wasn’t like the previous therapist he’d tried. That one had tried to convince him to try and get in contact with his...

All right, time to turn that music on and drown out those bad thoughts! He switched on the radio, which cut in on the middle of some song that was probably popular with the kids (they liked that electronic beepy sort of thing, right?). It was peppy enough to lift his spirits, at least. With the upbeat tune filling the former silence, Boris went into his bedroom and grabbed the puppet off his nightstand. “Well, Lil Habby, guess who gets a four day week-end!” he said cheerily, though he wasn’t entirely sure he felt the cheer behind it.

“Oh! It’s is got-2 ‘B’ u!” the puppet said in a more genuinely cheery manner. “Whamt a lucky giy! Hem hum, wonber how your’re gointo spemd all this ‘freetime’?”

“I’m not sure yet, to be fair,” Boris said. “I will figure some-thing out.”

He went back into the main room, puppet still on his arm, twirling about in a kind of halfhearted attempt at dancing to a genre of music that he wasn’t really all that familiar with. The music soon stopped, and the station's DJ cut in with an obnoxious forced laugh. “_Aaaand once again that was Chirpy Chips with their new single Split & Splat, how you guys all doin’ today?_” he announced. “_Anyone else catchin’ that synth-wave? Comin’ up next we’ve got Hightide Era with–_” The radio’s signal started to fizzle out, fading between annoying DJ and heavy static.

Boris gave the old thing a weird look -- sure, the thing was probably a fossil and was well overdue for a replacement, but he’d tinkered with it so much in his “let’s mess with the inner workings of electronics and see what happens” phase that he might as well have built it from scratch at this point and he knew it literally inside and out well enough to know that it never acted up like this. “What’s got you all upset?” he asked, making his way over to the struggling device. He tapped on it with a knuckle of his uncovered hand, the static starting to make way for something else. What the radio was picking up now faintly resembled music, sure, but it was unlike anything Boris had ever heard. Distorted electronic beats and weird scratching noises, occasionally something that sounded like vocals, but in a language that sounded vaguely familiar yet different enough to likely be indecipherable even if he could hear it clearly. “Catchy beat to it, at-least,” he muttered to himself. He held it closer to his ear as he started to fiddle with the dial, maybe he could tune it in better if he just...

Whatever odd song had been playing was suddenly interrupted again, this time much more clear. It was like an explosion of aural stimulation, especially the case since it was right against Boris’s ear at nearly full volume. The vocals kicked in, definitely the Inkling language he was accustomed to hearing this time, and they were voices he knew as well.

“_Ya weni marei mirekyarahire  
Juri yu mirekerason_

_Kire hyari yoriherahe nyurahera  
Nunnyura unera yurawera nyimerani_”

Something awoke deep inside him. Tears welled up in his eyes again, but they were not tears of an emotional breakdown this time, but a mix of nostalgia and joy. He knew this song. Well, he knew the melody at least. He’d heard it so many times in his life, from other kids at school when he was growing up, from passers-by on the street, background noise in movies...and more personally, in the darkest moments of his youth, it had been “sung” for him by what had been the only friend he’d really had for the longest time.

“That’s..._Lily’s_ song...” he choked out, a smile slowly making its way across his face. The melody brought back memories of his long forgotten friend, and the lyrics sung by who he recognized had to be that pop star pair who were always in the public eye as of late seemed to speak of hope and optimism, or at least that’s what he felt from it. Definitely passion.

Passion... Reignited passion.

Giddy and elated, Boris Habit had gotten himself an Idea. Not an idea for just how to spend his extra time off, but what he wanted to _do_ with his life. What seemed like a whim from childhood, a whim that the universe had tried to quash from his heart, was now bubbling back up to the surface like a happiness volcano about to burst with lava of joy. Perhaps a better metaphor would be diet soda and mint candies, because those usually led to excited laughter rather than immense property damage and potential loss of life. In any case, he knew what he was going to do next. But his plans necessitated a trip to the library. Sure, the information he needed could probably be found easily online, but this sort of thing probably hadn’t changed all that much in the decades since he had last thought about the subject. Besides, this sort of happiness couldn't be cooped up in his dingy apartment!

He had gotten downstairs and halfway across the apartment complex’s parking lot before he realized that his puppet was still on his arm. Too focused to take the time to head all the way back now, he merely took it off and buckled it into the passenger seat of his car, patting it on the head like a dearly loved child and practically leaping over to the driver’s side. As he pulled out of the lot and onto the street, he couldn’t help tapping his fingers on the dash along with the song – no, the _incantation_ – that had lodged itself firmly in his brain.

A flicker of resurging hope had bloomed in him, and he was going to take this as far as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been working on this AU for a while now, and I’d been content for a while with just writing an outline for the whole thing, but once my outline document crossed into the realm of four pages I figured I was pretty much just writing a fic already and I might as well admit it to myself. Hehehe... Anyway! I’ve actually already got the next two chapters and a decent chunk of the fourth chapter already written as well, dunno how much further along I’ll be before I post this first chapter but the point is that updates will come swifter than usual for my stuff, or at the very least the next one will. I like the headcanon that Habit legit has the ability to communicate with plants and wasn’t just projecting onto his lily, so I decided to throw that in there. Even as a shark man in a post-human society, Habit hears the flowers loud and clear. Well, maybe not AS loud and clear as he used to, I imagine he was kind of forced to repress that ability for the longest time for Obvious Reasons and thus it’s a little rusty from lack of use.
> 
> Fun little bits with some names and minor characters: Habit’s therapist, Dr. Dana Tanning, is named after the Dana octopus squid (_Taningia danae_) and its namesake Åge Vedel Tåning. Habit’s hardware store boss, Matt Gould, is named after the Gould’s squid, no real reason for the “Matt” part other than it felt right for a younger and not-a-dick manager. Got another person with interesting name origins in the next chapter. Speaking of, there’s octos coming up! Along with the favorite “assisty-ant”, as you could probably guess.__


	2. This Changes Everything

_That music..._

_I’ve never heard it before in my life..._

_But as I listen now, it feels like I’ve known this melody forever..._

_Almost like it’s been dormant in my blood, finally released..._

_What’s going on?_

\-----

“_Ya weni marei mirekyarahire  
Juri yu mirekerason_

_Kire hyari yoriherahe nyurahera  
Nunnyura unera yurawera nyimerani_”

The musical interception hit him hard, as he assumed it had to everyone else present. Octavio’s wasabi beats were swiftly overwhelmed by...whatever the hell _this_ was. It was their job to make sure Octavio’s setup was running smoothly, which was especially important as he was beating back this upstart little squid kid from topside, and they couldn’t even keep the communication signals from getting hacked? What kind of tech engineers were they? What kind of engineer was _he?_ Those are the questions he’d normally ask himself with these complications, but the power of that foreign song had him asking completely different ones. Who was that old guy that the kid was so focused on rescuing and that Octavio seemed to have such a strong vendetta against? Had stealing the Great Zapfish really been necessary? What had he been _doing_ all his life?

The engineer – no, _not_ just an engineer, _Kamal Bora_ – shakily lifted a hand to his face and removed the dark glasses he and all his colleagues wore. He glanced around cautiously, noticing that a lot of the others had done the same. No one was paying any attention to their duties anymore. They were too busy watching this showdown between Octavio and the kid, cheering and clamoring in a manner he had never seen. The energy in that room was infections, and pretty soon Kamal found himself getting excited as well. He wasn’t even sure if they were still rooting for their leader anymore or if they’d all suddenly changed sides, or maybe they were just caught up in the moment and overly excited in general. Even still, in the addictive cloud of mass elation, he could feel his mind becoming...clearer somehow. It was like he’d been asleep for years without knowing and only just woken up with a range of emotions and realizations that he’d never known before.

This changed _everything!_

\-----

It had been a few months since that incident with the weird song intrusion. During that time, Kamal had become more anxious than usual due to all the strange thoughts and quite frankly reckless ideas swimming around in his mind. It didn’t help matters that he’d received news of a fellow engineer, a prodigy by the name of Ida, had gone missing shortly after. No one knew what had happened to her, nor to the other Octolings that were slowly disappearing after her. But Kamal had a good idea what that might've been.

Because he’d been planning to do it himself.

Kamal was by no means an impulsive man. If he was going to try and make his way topside, he was going to make a damn solid plan beforehand. He’d found out about a secret migration force that would protect any escapees with no combat skills and intended to rendezvous with them at the next opportunity, that is if he was sure he was ready. He’d even already managed to make contact with someone topside and got a decent grasp on the Inkling language, though it was awkward trying to keep himself from slipping into it around others when he’d been practicing. The only thing left to do at this point, he guessed, was to tell his family goodbye.

“I’ve...decided I’m gonna get out of here,” he announced one night over a family dinner.

His parents and siblings all looked at him, confusion on every one of their faces. “Out of...this house?” his father finally asked, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen over them.

“No. I’m going topside.” Kamal winced a bit and swallowed hard. He _really_ hoped that his trust in his family hadn’t been misplaced. “I just...I don’t think that this place is good for me anymore. Good for any of us. Look, I’m not gonna ask any of you to follow me if you don’t want, but this is something I need to do. I feel like I’m gonna go crazy otherwise.”

“Are you absolutely certain you want to try that?” his mother asked him. “It’s a dangerous place, the surface world. All those squids roaming free up there, who knows what they’d do to you? I just don’t want to lose one of my babies to a rash decision...”

Kamal sighed. “I’ve been planning this for a while, mom,” he said firmly. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not a little boy throwing caution to the wind, all right? I’m a grown man making a life-altering decision, and yes, I’ve got a pretty good grasp on how I’m gonna handle things.”

“Go for it, Kam!” one of his sisters exclaimed, pumping her fist enthusiastically in the air. “Take your life in the direction you want it! S’about time one of us did, anyway!” This seemed to punch a hole right through the tense atmosphere, and soon enough the other siblings were also giving Kamal encouragement. Even his worried parents seemed to soften at the idea.

Later that night, Kamal began making his final preparations. He knew he wasn’t getting much sleep before the big move, as the rendezvous was at some ungodly hour, like 4 am or something. He’d gathered some clothes, old pictures of the family for luck, a couple extra toothbrushes and toothpaste (can never have enough of those), and...well, contraband, to be perfectly honest. Not in the eyes of the migration force, but if anyone still loyal to Octavio knew he had this on hand he’d be fried. It was the prototype of the last big thing he’d been working on before everything had changed. The Re-Inker X, he’d called it at the time, and god _damn_ did he wish he could’ve come up with a better name before it stuck. It'd been intended as an upgrade to what gave the non-Octoling soldiers their inking capabilities, as they were all just cuttings from some weirdo’s tentacles and not ink-ready from the start, thus needing an external device to give them that ability. It worked, yeah, but only with the Octarian cuttings and it made them susceptible to enemy ink much like the Octolings themselves. The X model was going to be bigger and better than that. With it, they could’ve recruited other species to their cause, not having to rely on whoever was on cutting duty to provide more soldiers, and eliminated the ink weakness in whoever was using said device.

Of _course_ he had to steal it once he’d had his change of heart! Octavio might’ve been taken out of the picture thanks to that squid kid and their...old man (grandpa? mentor? weird old guy who owed them money?), but that didn’t mean someone else couldn't step up in his place and cause some real damage with this thing. Besides, as the main guy who’d been working on it, the X model was pretty much his baby. He felt entitled, just a bit.

Once Kamal was pretty sure he’d finished, he sat down on his bed and pulled out the phone he’d gotten his hands on. Working with the military tech had garnered him certain privileges, and while the thing had probably been bugged to hell and back it wasn’t anything a decent vpn couldn’t handle. Good thing too, because his topside contact didn’t need to be bothered with any potential invasion. Not that he knew if that was even a possibility considering the recent events.

**kamalb0ra:** Gonna get some sleep then I'm about to head out in a few hours, wish me luck

**wallweed:** luck

**wallweed:** look me up irl sometime if you get the chance

**kamalb0ra:** Can't wait to see the actual sun for once

**kamalb0ra:** Though it might still be dark when we're supposed to be out

**wallweed:** maybe, sunrise is starting to get later

**kamalb0ra:** That's normal right?

**wallweed:** happens every year dw you'll get used to it

**kamalb0ra:** Hope I get all the time in the world to enjoy that

**wallweed:** lemme know when you're out ok

**kamalb0ra:** Sure :^)

Kamal smiled for real as well as he put the phone down. Just a few hours, and if all went well he’d see real sunshine and feel actual breezes on his skin from all that fresh air he’d be smelling... It was gonna be great.

\-----

And already things were NOT going great. He’d managed to make it to the rendezvous on time, but his brain was practically fried from what basically amounted to a mere nap rather than any decent sleep. There were more refugees than he honestly thought there might be – hell, some of these were families with children, what were their parents _thinking_ bringing kids on this dangerous trip – and a few turncoat soldiers making sure everyone was organized and well-informed of the plan. Kamal was lagging behind a bit, both due to the nerves of being in a larger crowd than he’d prepared himself for and his lack of sleep dulling his movement speed, and before he knew it he was being fitted with an ink tank and having a charger shoved in his hands. “Hang on, what, why’re you giving me this?” he asked when he finally realized what was going on.

“If you’re gonna stick to the back, you can watch our six,” the soldier told him. “I’m assuming you know how to handle that thing, right?”

“Uh, no, I’m actually not even–”

“Well, it’s the last free weapon we’ve got on hand, so you’re gonna have to learn quick.” She thought for a bit, then plugged a small device into the ink tank. “There, I’ve got you some curling bombs too, you should be good to go,” she said.

“I don’t think you’re really getting my situation, Miss...um...”

The soldier rolled her eyes. “Maya,” she said sternly. “And Bora, was it? Your situation is the same as everyone else here, so you’ve gotta pull your weight like anyone else would be asked to do.”

With that she turned to take her position closer to the middle of the group, roller in hand with a confident grip, leaving Kamal holding a charger with not a damn clue how to even use it. All he could do was follow, as well as mutter under his breath, “I don’t even know what ‘watch our six’ _means_...”

Thankfully most of the journey wasn’t too hectic. Those who actually knew how to handle the ink weapons were doing a pretty good job of getting everyone through, which mostly consisted of spreading ink for travel purposes as there didn’t seem to be anyone taking the reins to send loyal Octarians after them...yet. With the reasonably smooth travel, Kamal didn’t really have to do much aside from one good shot at a sponge, and even then the kickback from the charger going off nearly knocked him off his feet.

“Careful.”

Kamal looked behind him where the voice came from, half-expecting it to be another one of the soldiers, but instead he saw a kid. They weren’t quite old enough to have full control between their octopus and humanoid forms, and they had their tentacle hair tied up and out of the way of their frankly enormous eyes. Dear god, were _his_ eyes that big at that age? It was a little bit creepy, to be honest. “Oh, sorry about that, kiddo,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Didn’t mean to almost make you a flapjack, I just...have NO clue what I’m doing with this thing.”

“Trying your best,” the kid said. God, they just would NOT stop staring, but somehow it seemed a little endearing as well as creepy? Either way, they had to keep moving or they’d both be left behind. Kamal waved for the kid to follow him, and though they hesitated a bit they did soon start properly tagging along.

“So you got a name, kid?” he asked. “Are your parents with the rest of the group?”

The kid said nothing for a while. “Tim Tam,” they eventually replied. “Parents aren’t here. Wanna stay. Ran away.”

“We’re in the same boat on that,” Kamal said. “Think mine are just too old to even try and relocate, even if it was safe.”

Kamal took Tim Tam’s hand and led them along to catch up with the rest of the group. Of all the things he was expecting to do today, it definitely wasn’t look after a child, but apparently that was his life now. They soon caught up with everyone else, with Maya giving Kamal a look that was both annoyed and confused. “Could you straggle _any_ further, Bora?” she asked. “And what's with the kid? Thought you came solo.”

“I did,” Kamal said. “Excuse _me_ for actually looking out for someone else instead of walkin’ around with a giant military-grade stick up my...” He paused, remembering the likely age of who the not-yet-hand holding his belonged to. “Up my, uh...”

“Ass,” Tim Tam helpfully added. Okay, so the kid was old enough to know swears. Kamal still shot them a glare that basically said “watch your language, youngster”.

“How _dare_ you!" Maya gaped. “I’ve been guarding the main group with my partner this whole time, something you would’ve _known_ if you and your new little squirt had bothered to keep pace with everyone! What have _you_ been doing this whole time?!”

“What I can!” Kamal spat back. “Which isn’t much, cuz in case you haven’t noticed from me barely firing this stupid thing you threw in my hands, I AM NOT EFFING TRAINED TO OPERATE ANY EFFING WEAPONRY SMALLER THAN THE EFFING OCTOSTOMP.” Even in his frustration he had to rein himself in a bit. Gotta keep things somewhat clean for the kid.

“What?!” Maya growled and grabbed at her tentacle hair in annoyance. “Why didn’t you say something before?!”

“I _TRIED._” Kamal let out a groan of his own. “I’m just...not good at being assertive...”

Maya opened her mouth to respond, but their argument was soon interrupted by frantic screaming. Further ahead on a raised platform, the refugees were fleeing from an approaching massive shape as the other soldier peppered it with ink fire. “I could really use some help here!!” she shouted, a touch of panic noticeable in her tone.

“We may have gone blue for this mission, but god _damn_ is she green,” Maya said with a sigh. She turned back to Kamal, sternly told him “Watch the squirt,” then quickly shifted into octopus form and leapt up to where the action was.

Kamal craned his head to try and get a better look at what was going on; he didn’t know what good seeing exactly what the two soldiers were fighting would do considering his own lack of skill, but at the same time not knowing at all was making him nervous, like most things honestly. He half-considered following Maya’s lead and getting a front-row seat to the fight, but with him being the only adult in close enough proximity to do so he had to keep an eye on Tim Tam. Who he noticed was no longer holding onto his hand.

They were instead sprinting toward a nearby wall dripping with blue ink and spatterings of the standard Octarian red-violet, a shiny object in their vaguely shaped hand. _Oh god the kid had a knife why the hell did they have an actual goddamn knife._

Tim Tam reached the ink-coated wall and started clumsily swimming up, their half-formed limbs flopping in and out of the ink in some sort of weird doggy paddle and dangerously close to dropping the knife they tried to keep a death grip on. Instinct took him over before he could really think about it. Kamal went octo and swam up the wall after them, much faster given his firmer grip on his form-changing, and grabbed onto them before they could get too far into whatever crazy plan they’d just come up with. “Give me that!” he half-shouted, partially re-forming a humanoid arm to try and remove the knife from their grasp. “What kind of parents did you have that let their kid play with knives?!” They were both startled out of their fumbling with a loud **_SLAM!_** on the platform they were now on.

The thing that had been attacking the refugees was now in full view: a huge, hulking Octarian that was humanoid in shape to where he could almost pass for another Octoling if it weren’t for his facial structure and impossibly exaggerated proportions. Enormous midsection, small head with beady eyes and big doofy lips, a long tentacle tied in a ponytail, beefy arms covered in suckers, and spindly legs that were pedaling a comically tiny unicycle. He’d already sideswiped the rookie soldier with the oversized roller he was wielding, which Kamal recognized as something one of his work buddies had been in charge of. “Of _course_ they gave the Octocycle prototype to the Octo Samurai,” he groaned. “But _now?_ Is that thing even _ready?_” He shook his head, he had more important things to worry about, like Tim Tam – oh no, they were out of sight again.

No wait, there they were, running toward the Octo Samurai with knife still in hand. There was no way they were gonna be able to take on this huge guy with what looked like a dinky little kitchen knife! Thankfully they seemed to realize this as well, as they stopped a good few feet away from actual contact with the Samurai and instead chose to throw the knife with a sharp yell. The yell seemed to get the Samurai’s attention more than the weapon, as it did little more than graze the side of his face as he turned to face them. He growled, lifting his massive roller into the air in preparation to strike.

That protective instinct hit Kamal again, and before he knew it he had aimed the charger he was still carrying and fired it for the second time in his life, somehow hitting the Samurai right in the face. It wouldn’t be much good, but it would be enough to buy the time he needed to get Tim Tam out of there. He swam through the trail his weapon had made, grabbed hold of Tim Tam, and got out just as Maya leapt into the fray once more. “What were you thinking?” he asked them once it seemed they were out of striking range. “You could’ve gotten hurt!”

“Protect you,” they said simply. “New dad.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, I didn’t say _anything_ about being your—”

“BORA GET OUT OF THE WAY!!”

A wave of raspberry jam ink cascaded toward them, barely catching Kamal’s leg as he pulled Tim Tam out of firing range. He winced, but the pain was dulled significantly by submerging the limb in the blue ink, and either way it was better him than the kid. The Samurai reeled back for another swing, but Maya was faster – she got in close and caught the Samurai's strike with her own roller, putting the two of them in the briefest of stalemates. “Hit him from the left!” Kamal shouted. “His weapon lists to the right!” Maya nodded, twisting her roller into a vertical position and leaping toward the Samurai, smacking him in the left side and splatting him in an azure burst. The Octocycle was left behind, but it was violently shaking.

_It was gonna blow at any second!_

Kamal ran over to the Octocycle and started trying to shove it toward the edge of the platform. “The hell are you doing?!” Maya shouted, trying to pull him back.

“Help me get this thing over the side!” Kamal grunted. “It’s going either way, I’d rather we not go with it!”

Maya agreed and added her strength to Kamal’s feeble pushing. The ruined Octocycle tumbled off the platform and fell toward the nearest wall, just in time for it to finally explode. They both let out a sigh of relief. “So how’d you know about the left thing?” she asked him.

“I knew the main guy who was working on that prototype,” Kamal said. “He never stopped complaining about how they couldn’t get that issue ironed out.”

“Oh, so you’re one of the _eggheads!_” Maya said with a laugh. “No wonder you can barely handle a weapon!”

“Wow, rude.”

Kamal felt Tim Tam’s half-formed hand slip into his, and he couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Bright,” the kid said after a short while. Kamal turned to see where the volatile Octocycle had detonated, and he let out a gasp. Sure enough, bright beams of light were pouring in the large crater. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Actual sunlight. They’d really done it.

“We’d better get moving,” Maya said. While her tone seemed fairly stoic, Kamal could see from her face that she was experiencing the same sense of awe that he was. “Grab your kid and let’s go.”

“They’re not...” Kamal started to protest, but he really couldn’t bring himself to argue. Those beams of sun were calling him, as well as everyone else that had made this journey, and he couldn’t wait to feel their warmth on his skin.

This was the day that Kamal Bora was going to make his life truly his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, action time! Probably not gonna be THAT much action, but at least we got some! Not gonna lie, Octo Samurai is my FAVORITE boss in Splatoon 2 from what I’ve played so far. I’ll admit it’s more than likely that I’m biased because your first time playing that fight makes you use a roller, and hey, Krak-On Roller main here! So yeah, we got Kamal now and he’s gonna start making his life better too. Fun fact, I didn’t initially plan to include Tim Tam in this chapter, but I _did_ always plan to include them in this AU overall and make them an Octoling. So I figured since they were still young it might be interesting to have them show up here in that still awkward pre-humanoid form. We’ll probably see them with full control over their kid and octo forms soon enough. I mean, I intended to have them in this AU from the start and they’ve basically adopted Kamal at this point, it wouldn’t make sense to leave them out now. And also because I might get asked about it, no, the rookie Octoling soldier didn’t get splatted! She just got sideswiped and then dipped out when Maya jumped in, leaving the actual fight to someone more skilled while she focused on getting the refugees to safety.
> 
> Maya, the Octoling soldier that helped Kamal, is named after the Mexican four-eyed octopus, aka _Octopus maya_. I didn't have a name for the rookie in mind at this point, but I did come up with something while I was working on the next chapter so there will be a name to the face. Those checkin’ this out from the SFM side (which is probably most of you tbh) can probably infer, but Kamal’s topside contact “wallweed” is Wallus, and his username is that because he’s in the wall and in this AU he’s seaweed. Specifically mozuku, like the Bottom Feeders vocalist, and yes I _did_ over-research this stuff. And I don’t have any names for the Boras yet (aside from the obvious surname), but I did want to include the family scene because of my headcanon that Kamal has a big and super-supportive family who love and protect the hell outta each other. And yes, they would absolutely welcome Boris in with open arms _oh lord there goes the Habismal instinct again even though they’ve yet to meet in this AU aaaaaaaaa_


	3. Chance Encounter

It’d been several months since he’d made the decision to turn his life around, and Boris had basically thrown everything he had into his new plans. It was going to be _great_, he’d finally be able to reconnect with his first passion and bring happiness to other people at the same time. There was only one problem that he couldn’t find a way around: financing. Sure, he was pretty good at handling money in a reasonably sensible manner, but of course it’s hard to manage money you just don’t have. Maybe he’d have more capital to put into this venture if he’d actually followed through with what his degree allowed him, but there was no way in _hell_ he was going to actually become a..._nevermind_. He had also used a lot of his personal savings for some _very important surgeries_, though of course that was a little over a decade ago and not something he’d regretted in the slightest, as it would have happened whether or not this plan could come to fruition. That’d been more of a priority than pretty much anything.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. He stood up, confused – he certainly wasn’t expecting any visitors. He made his way to the door and opened it, revealing an Inkling man in official-looking attire with a rather thick envelope in his hand. “Can I, uh...can I ‘help’ you?” Boris asked.

“Ah, yes, is this the residence of one Boris Habit?” the visitor asked.

“Yes, you are speaking to him,” Boris said with a nod. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, this is probably going to be a bit difficult to explain, in more ways than one,” the visitor said. “The papers we were given had initially listed a different name, but given that the only person we could find related to that name was you I’m going to assume you’re one and the same. Uh, if it’s not too concerning, can you tell me if you’ve ever gone by this name?"

The visitor grimaced as he held up a small bit of paper for Boris to read. He recognized that name, all right, and immediately he felt a pit in his stomach. “How did you con-nect that name to ‘me’?” he asked, barely able to get the words out as his throat felt a bit tight. “Who could possibsly stil be call-ing me that...?”

“I apologize profusely if this has caused you any duress, because the news I’ve come to deliver may make things worse,” the visitor said solemnly. “You see, that name was listed as the sole beneficiary of the Habit estate—”

“No.” That pit in Boris’s stomach was starting to fill with a mixture of rage and despair. “If you’re talking about my parents, I want _nothing_ to do with Them. I am _Not_ meet-ing with them for _an-ny_ reason.”

“I can assure you that will not be happening, sorry but please let me finish.” The visitor sighed. “As I was trying to say, I’m here on behalf of the Habit estate to deliver the news to their sole beneficiary. You see, they’ve both recently passed.”

Passed? Did this man mean... “Their’re ‘dead’?”

“Yes, sir, and while I would normally give my condolences for this sort of announcement, your initial reaction gives me the impression that is not necessary.” The visitor handed Boris the envelope, which he took with some trepidation. “You’ll find all of the information pertaining to the inheritance inside, you’ll just need to sign some forms within and mail them back to our office. We’ll accept your current name as the signature, don’t worry about that. And I should let you know that the money was initially given terms that imply it was meant for some sort of clinic, but there’s no legal obligation for us to enforce that part of the will so anything you receive is yours to do with what you wish.”

“All right, then.” There was a awkward pause between the two before Boris finally asked, “Can I...can I ask how they dyed?”

“From what I’ve been told, it’s to do with that freak landslide on the side of Mount Nantai a few days ago,” the visitor said. “Apparently it came out of nowhere while they were on the road and they happened to be caught in the thick of it.”

_Good,_ Boris thought to himself. He then felt awful for thinking that, and then felt stupid for even slightly feeling awful about it. “Well, thamk you for bring-ing this,” Boris said. “Have a goode day.”

“You too, sir,” the visitor said with a slightly sad smile. He then left, Boris closing the door behind him.

Dead... they were really dead... Boris couldn’t believe it. He really didn’t know how to feel. On the one hand, he _had_ promised himself that he would never speak to them again given...what they had done to him, so it’s not like he was exactly mourning their passing. But on the other hand, the way they had gone was just so _drastic_, and he’d never wanted them to be _killed_ as some sick retribution for their crimes. Not that he would have ever forgiven them, of course, it’s just that wishing death on someone that had wronged him really wasn’t his thing. He was better than that. Maybe he had wished for them to at least go to jail, even though it would be much too long ago for their actions to be properly charged, and even so he’d been content to just cut contact for the rest of all three of their lives...well, guess he’d truly done that.

There was nothing more to do than open the envelope and see just what he’d been willed. Carefully he did just that, revealing several official documents. Right on top was the deed to the old house, which was a given. Next was another property, and while he didn’t recognize the address it likely where his parents’ clinic had been moved to after he had left. And then there was the actual money listed. He hadn’t seen that much money in _years_. Handled carefully, it could keep him living comfortably for a long time, regardless of whether or not his big idea worked out. And that was just with the hard cash – the combined value of the house and other property would only boost that even further, not including selling off whatever furniture or appliances or whatnot that were left there. He certainly wasn’t going to keep anything from those places, after all! He didn’t want anything around that would be a constant reminder of...

Wait. There was one thing. Or rather, several little things.

Boris quickly signed through the surprisingly concise acquisition form, scribbling out every mention of his deadname and replacing it with his real one. After prepping it for mailing, he picked up his phone and dialed a number he’d been in contact with on and off for the past few months. “Yes, it’s Boris again,” he said cheerfully once the person on the other end answered. “You know how I sayed I was in-ter-ested in that little place n Inkopolis Square? Things came upp, and I would like to ‘talk’ about making the pur-chase for real!”

\-----

Whatever the hell was making that noise all night every night had better stop or he was gonna lose it.

It had been a few weeks since Kamal and his fellow refugees had made it to the surface, and they’d set up a little camp in the woods surrounding the mountain that they had exited from. While he understood why it had to be in a secluded location, the noises were really getting to him. It’s not like he wasn’t used to noisy nights, but the sounds he’d gone to sleep with all his life were those of mechanical groaning, various urban ambiance, the occasional metallic scrape of a structure under disrepair falling to pieces while those on top of them screamed in terror...that one was really sickening, thinking about how he had ever gotten used to it. The sounds of the woods at night, however, were completely different. Weird chattering and squawking of what he could only assume were woodland creatures, crunching and rustling of leaves at every movement, and the cot he was trying to sleep on let out a loud squeak every time he so much as adjusted his arm underneath him.

“I honestly think I’m gonna go nuts from lack of sleep,” he told Maya. While he wouldn’t exactly call them friends yet, he felt that he had at least become friendly with her and he was the only adult around he felt comfortable talking at length to. “I mean, this place is great! Great during the day! But the sounds at night just set off every single one of my nerves. Brain’s on high alert all the time and I can’t get _any_ rest...”

“I can see where you’re coming from,” Maya said. “I get the whole ‘brain on high alert’ thing, though of course for a completely different reason.”

“Nature sounds just don’t work well with me,” Kamal groaned. “Pretty sure I can’t sleep well without some sort of city sound.” He sighed, then turned to see Tim Tam standing beside him, holding one of his toothbrushes. “Hey! Don’t take things that aren’t yours!”

“Busted,” Tim Tam murmured to themself. They handed the brush to Kamal, and he could see that over just the few weeks he’d known them, their hands had already begun to split into proper fingers.

The rookie soldier that had accompanied their group ran over to them, waving a thick envelope in her hand. “Maya, Maya!” she exclaimed. “We got ‘em! Took quicker than we thought, and they’re all here!”

Maya sighed. It was clear that she wasn’t too fond of the rookie’s exuberance. "Thank you, Tetra," she said with a sigh, taking the envelope from her. Tetra giggled and went off to do whatever else she must’ve had to do as Maya opened the envelope and rifled through the items within. “Well, good news is that it’ll be a lot easier for you to get just about anywhere you wanna go now,” she told Kamal. She pulled out a file and a small plastic card and handed them to him. “ID stuff,” she said. “This one’s yours.”

Kamal looked over the items he’d been given, and yeah, it was all there. Pretty much everything about his life, altered slightly to make it seem that he'd been born topside rather than in the “valley”. “Thanks a ton,” he said with a smile. “Think I’m gonna head out.”

“So soon?” Maya raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, sooner I can get back into an urban environment, the better.” He stood up and stretched, grabbing his bag and making sure that the little sticky-fingered gremlin hadn’t pilfered anything else. Clothes, photos, toothbrushes, toothpaste, Re-Inker X, everything was present and accounted for. He slung his bag over his shoulder, and with a friendly wave he turned to leave. At least, he would have if a pair of skinny arm-tentacles didn’t force themselves around his midsection. “Whoa, kid, you gotta warn me before you do that,” Kamal chuckled.

He turned and looked down at Tim Tam, who stared up at him with those huge eyes. There was the hint of a nose starting to form in between them. “Don’t go,” they said, a bit of sadness noticeable in their typical monotone. A brief pause, then they added, “Take me too.”

“Really sorry, kiddo,” Kamal said as he patted their head, “but I’m just not ready to look after children at this point in my life. Maybe if you ever get to the city yourself you can come find me.”

\-----

It’d been over fifteen years since the last time he’d set foot in this house, and even now Boris was getting anxious just standing on the front doorstep. Technically speaking, he shouldn’t have any worries about the place; it had been his for a while now, its former occupants were dead and in the ground (he’d opted to let someone else take care of the funeral, he didn’t have the mental fortitude to get involved with _that_) and couldn’t hurt him anymore, he was an adult now and could better defend himself against such things anyway... “I’ve got to get this over with,” he said to himself. After all, he’d left his car in the city after the majority of his things had been moved over to his new place, and his now-former manager likely had things to do that he couldn’t justify keeping him from for too long. He unlocked the door and, closing his eyes from nerves, shoved his way in.

The old house was noticeably different, yet still completely recognizable. Appliances and furniture had been switched out due to necessity if for no other reason, but the overall layout of where everything was placed was the same. He could’ve navigated this place blind, although if he were going solely off of memory some of the events that took place in this house would resurface and he didn’t need any of that, especially not now. He had to remain focused. He was here for one thing and one thing only.

Boris made his way past all the likely expensive items arranged throughout the house without giving anything so much as a glance-over. He ascended the stairs and made a beeline for the small room in the back. It was very likely that the thing he was looking for was long gone by now, but he had hope. And given that the house had already sold, he only had one day to act on it.

The air in his old room was just as heavy as he remembered. None of his things were there, of course – whatever he hadn’t taken with him when he left must’ve been either sold or thrown out, and the room was now purely used as storage. That was all right. If his hunch was correct, the thing he’d been looking for would have been passed by in the room's emptying.

He still knew what to look for, so he almost instantly spotted the loose floorboard. He carefully moved the boxes off the floorboard and began to pry it up with his fingers. It had become a tighter fit in the years it wasn’t regularly removed and replaced, but after enough careful pulling he did manage to get it off. A small tin was inside, a label taped to the lid with “BORIS’S TRESURE” written on it in childish scrawl. “Please be there, pleese be their, pleaze be they’re...” He took the tin and gingerly opened the lid.

_you came back! : - D_

There they were. Pristine and untouched, even after all these years. Sitting in the tin were nine little flower seeds, shaped like the teeth of some extinct mammal species. (what were those things called again? hyoo-mann?) Tears began to well up in his eyes, thankfully not the type of tears he'd prepared himself to possibly shed in this house. He couldn’t believe it. They were all here, every single one...well, there had been ten initially when he had bought them in that little seaside town, but that one had long been planted and...

_he's really back! : - O_

_it’s boris! it's boris!_

_you’re back for us! : - D_

_we missed you so much boris! : - )_

“Ibve missed youall two...” Boris said, no longer able to hold back the overwhelming emotion. He closed the tin once more and hugged it close to his chest before placing it in the pocket of his coat. He replaced the floorboard, left a note to alert the house’s next owners that it was there, and made his way towards the door. It wouldn’t be good to keep Matt waiting, after all, and he had a train to catch.

\-----

It’d been a long day of hiking and hitching rides, but eventually Kamal had made it to a train station. The sun had already set by now, and he really hoped that there were still trains running at this time of night. Thankfully the station was relatively vacant, so he wouldn’t have to handle a lot of questions about his “weird hairstyle”. He’d already made plans with Wallus to meet up with him once he got to the city proper, and then he could just chill and get over everything.

He made his way up to the ticket counter, nervously tapping his fingers against the strap of his bag. The attendant looked about as tired as Kamal felt. “Excuse me?” he asked them. “There any trains to Inkopolis Square running soon?”

“Hm? Oh, right, right, there’s one set to arrive in about thirty minutes.” They double-checked the chart and nodded. “Yeah, thirty-five minutes. You wanna go ahead and buy a ticket?”

“Sure, lemme just...” Kamal reached into his bag, then examined his pockets. A sense of dread started to creep up over him. All his preparations, every little detail accounted for, and he had forgotten to bring any sort of money with him. “I...um...uh...oh my god...”

“Look, if you’re not gonna buy a ticket, I can’t help you,” the attendant said. “Sorry, bud.”

Kamal let out an anxious whine. “Can’t you just let it slide this once?” he asked, the desperation clear in his voice. “I promise that when I get the money I’ll reimburse it, I swear!”

“No can do.”

“That’s...fair.” Kamal moved away from the ticket counter, then found a corner to crawl into and hold himself in a fetal position. Stupid! _STUPID!_ How could he forget _money?!_ Not even a question of whether or not Octarian money would be accepted, just no money in general! What the hell was WRONG with him?!

\-----

“Thamk you so very much for this!” Boris exclaimed as he hastily exited the car. “Don’t worry about miss-ing the early train time, car trouble is under-stand-able, it’s enough that you’re are driving me here at all!"

“Just text me your gratitude later, geez!” Matt said, passing him his last bit of luggage through the door. “You’re gonna be sleeping in the station of you don’t hurry up!”

“I know, I know!!” Boris grabbed his bag and waved as he began running to the station. “Good-bye, Matt!” he called back behind him. “And thanks again!”

“Good luck with the flowers, you crazy bastard,” Matt said with a chuckle, driving off into the night.

Boris hurried up the steps, quite a feat given that he regularly wore heels, and made his way inside the train station. He pushed the doors open and finagled both himself and his luggage inside, and as he did so his thoughts began to wander.

_Why are you doing this? It’s never going to work out._

Ah, there it was, that last little drip of self-doubt that’d managed to stick around. He grabbed at the sides of his head and gritted his teeth, trying to push the creeping thoughts back. Go away, self-doubt. Even if the plan wasn’t successful, it wouldn’t hurt to at least try. He’d already come this far, hadn’t he?

_Just give it up._

No! This was his last chance to actually do what he wanted with his life!

_The last thing the world needs is a florist._

That’s not...true...nearly everyone likes flowers, right?

“Oh my _GOD_ what the hell was I _THINKING?!_”

He briefly thought that he’d shouted part of his own inner struggle out loud. Then he realized that couldn’t have been what happened. For one, the voice he’d heard was higher-pitched and a lot more nasally-sounding than his own. Secondly, “oh my god” wasn’t really a term he used that often, and he rarely even used tamer swears unless he was absolutely sure he was around only other adults. That had to be another person. Boris glanced around in concern until he saw him: a man sitting in a far corner, his legs held tightly to his chest and his body shaking. He cautiously made his way over to him, catching snippets of the rambling he was doing. “...can’t _believe_ I thought this was smart...never should’ve left...how could I be so _stupid_...one little mistake and everything’s down the crapper...”

“Ex-cuse me! Hello there!”

Kamal jumped and let out a yelp. He hadn't been expecting anyone to approach him in the nearly abandoned station, certainly not someone so...physically imposing. Tall, very tall, probably over seven foot if he could make an accurate estimate (which he doubted, seeing as how he was currently sitting on the floor). Broad as well, with long red fin-like growths trailing down his head rather than anything resembling tentacles, so okay, _not_ an Inkling, maybe like a fish or something. Lantern eyes that seemed to glow in the station’s dim lighting, sharp fingers on massive hands, what looked like several pointed teeth from what he could see in his partially opened mouth, everything about this guy looked intimidating except for his expression. Concern? Or just exhaustion like himself? “You, uh...you run this place?” Kamal asked once he’d collected himself.

“Oh no, I’m just take-ing a late train,” Boris said, motioning to his luggage. “I’m sorrey if I ‘scared’ you. You seemed realy torn up about something. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just _peachy_,” Kamal said, grimacing. "Just found out that I can’t get a ticket cuz my dumb ass left all my money at home and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna be able to go back, that's all.”

Boris frowned. Poor guy, he must’ve been trying to get away from a bad home life just like he had. That sounded like the kind of silly mistake he might’ve made back then, too. He looked up at the clock – not quite 8:30 yet, there was still time. “So where was it you were plan-ing to go?" he asked.

“Inkopolis Square," Kamal said. “Know a guy there who was planning on letting me crash at his place, but I guess that plan's a bust now..." At the mention of this, the big guy’s worried frown spread into a wide smile – _good lord that was a lot of teeth oh god_. “What’s with that look?” he tried to ask as calmly as possible, but the nervous voice crack was just too obvious. Thankfully if this needle-mouthed giant noticed, he made no indication of doing so.

“That’s where I’m going too!” Boris exclaimed. “Here, come ‘with’ me.” He held out his free hand to the anxious cephalopod, which he took and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Grinning gleefully, and maybe giggling a little bit _but you wouldn’t catch him admitting that just yet_, he led him back over to the ticket counter and slapped his hand dramatically onto the counter. “Two for the eight-thirty to Inkopolis Square, please!”

The attendant noticed Kamal and glared at him, and all he could do was nervously wave at them. “You’ve actually got payment, right dude?” they asked.

"Of course!” Boris pulled out his wallet and quickly made the transaction, thanked the attendant and pulled his new companion along to catch the train as quickly as possible.

“You really didn’t have to do that–” Kamal began to say, but he was cut off by a friendly laugh.

“I know I didn’t not _have_ to,” Boris said with another toothy smile. “You needed the help, and since I could, well, whymnot?”

“Fair point, I guess.”

The train arrived right on time, as expected. Even with hardly anyone at this station, the two rushed aboard as soon as the doors opened. This ride was certainly likely to be interesting if nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good-byyyyyye Trash Habits, bad parents get rocks dropped on ‘em! And even better, Habit and Kamal are meeting finally! Apologies for all the “the (characteristic)” parts when they’re in dialogue with one another, but I couldn’t think of any other way to illustrate that they don’t know each others’ names yet, I tried to limit it and I’ll pretty much throw it out by the time they’ve made proper introductions.
> 
> And yeah, for the purposes of this story and any other SFM stuff I make, Habit trans. I figured not many people in the Splatoon universe would make a big deal about it except for a “hell yeah trans rights”, cuz I’m preeeetty sure that Inklings/Octolings can canonically change their physical gender presentation at will to match their gender identity (and even if that’s not canon, squids and octos say trans rights dammit!), but at the same time Habit’s awful parents...likely wouldn’t so that’s why the will is written with his deadname. And no I’m not saying what that is because that would be rude. ...and I haven’t thought of one anyway even if it weren’t.
> 
> Fun name thing: Tetra, the rookie Octoling soldier, is named after the common Sydney octopus, aka Octopus tetricus. That’ll prolly be the last one, I think. Everyone else I can think of that’ll have focus put on them enough to be named are either pre-established characters in Splatoon or Smile For Me, plus my Flower Kid.
> 
> ........I’m wondering just how easy it is to put the pieces together what exactly happened to the Trash Habits. ; - )


	4. Stay the Night?

The car they’d chosen on the late train was eerily empty. It was only 8:30-something at night, it’s not like they were traveling at midnight or some other ungodly late hour. Even still, they sat pretty close to one another, one for companionship and the other for the illusion of safety that came with being near someone else who had been at least somewhat friendly to you.

It was Boris who took the initiative, holding his hand out to shake. “Boris Habit,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Uh, likewise.” Kamal gingerly took Boris’s hand with his, unable to ignore the size difference. “Kamal Bora.”

They sat in a bit of awkward silence for a while before Boris spoke up again. “Soooo, what are you going to Inkopolis for?” he asked. “If you don’t mind me ask-ing.”

“I just...wanted to get away from bad circumstances, I guess,” Kamal said. He kept his gaze averted as he squirmed in his seat, trying to figure out how to both be honest and not give away too much. “Family’s in a bad way, so I thought I’d try to get out and make things better, maybe some point they’ll be able to follow too but I dunno. So I got out of...my old town, but the place I ended up in was driving me nuts and I figured an urban environment would suit me better.” He glanced up with a nervous smile. “So how about you, Boris?” he asked. “Got family in the city or something? Elopin’ with a lover?”

Boris blanched. “No, nothing like that,” he said. “I’m just make-ing some new opportunities for myself. Flollowing my ‘dreams’. I’m opening a flower shop there in a few weeks, but I’m moving to my new home to-night.”

“Flower shop? Sounds lovely.” He laughed a little. “Don’t think I have any reason to buy flowers anytime soon, otherwise I’d consider bein’ one of your first customers once I get some cash. Y’know, as thanks for covering my ticket.”

“Oh, how thought-ful,” Boris chuckled.

It was at that point that Kamal’s phone decided to go off, and as he had forgotten to silence it, a chiptune rendition of that song rang out throughout the train car. Kamal yelped and hurriedly tried to answer the call, muttering to himself “shut up, shut UP stupid thing...”

“I like your ringy-tone!” Boris exclaimed. “The Calamari Inkantation really is a loveley song, itsn’t it?”

Oh yeah, he didn’t have to hide evidence of that tune anymore now that he was presumably in the location it had come from. “So _that’s_ what it’s called,” Kamal murmured, nodding nonetheless as his nervously fumbling fingers finally got the dang phone to answer the call. “Hey, what’s up?”

“_Hey! Kamal! That is you, right? Think this might actually be the first time we’ve actually heard each other._”

“Dunno who else it could be,” Kamal said. He was amazed he could actually pick out what Wallus was saying given the weird reverberation of his voice, then again from what he had been led to believe about the guy his manner of vocalizing was very...unique. “So what’s with the sudden call? You’re more of a texting kind of guy usually.”

“_Yeah, I had to make sure you got this asap,_” Wallus said. “_Remember how I said you could crash at my place?_”

“Oh, don’t _tell_ me...”

“_There was a gas line burst about an hour ago,_” Wallus said apologetically. “_Had to evacuate and been talking to maintenance and emergency people for a while, I’ve only just been able to get ahold of anyone that wasn’t directly involved. They’ve shut everything off by now and said they were gonna get someone to fix it tomorrow morning, but knowing how these guys usually are I wouldn’t bet on them coming until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest._”

“You’ve at least got a place to stay until then, right?" Kamal asked.

“_Yeah, they’re putting me up in a hotel in the meantime. Buuuut I don’t think they’ll be too keen on also putting up any guests I’d planned on having over. Sorry, bud. I’ll make it up to you somehow, promise._”

“It’s fine,” Kamal sighed. “It’s not your fault. I’ll figure something out, I think.”

“_Best of luck, pal._”

“You too.” Kamal ended the call with a groan of annoyance. “Geez, my luck is just on a seesaw tonight, isn’t it.”

Boris closed the book he had pulled out sometime during Kamal's time on the phone and turned to face him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Apparently the guy I was staying with had to evac his place and now I don’t have a place to stay anymore,” Kamal sighed. “Guess this trip was for nothing, then...”

“I’m glad it sounds like your friend is o-kay at least,” Boris said. He thought for a bit. “You know, if you’re comfortable with the idea, you can stay at my place for a while.”

Kamal gave him a weird look. “You serious?” he asked. “I mean, we only just met, you’re cool with offering your home to some rando on the train?”

“It just seems like the right thing to ‘do’,” Boris replied with a smile. “If you’d rather I help you find a hotel room or something that’s fine—”

“No!” Kamal said, a bit more forceful than he had maybe intended. “Uh, sure, I’ll take up the first offer. Thank you, I really... I really appreciate that. Thanks.” He looked back at his phone. Might as well let Wallus know he was covered.

**kamalb0ra:** Good news wall man! Got a place to stay after all!

**wallweed:** already?

**wallweed:** wow that was fast

**wallweed:** who's putting you up

**kamalb0ra:** This guy I met on the train

**kamalb0ra:** He paid for my ticket cuz I forgot money like a dumbass

There was a long pause between that message and Wallus’s reply.

**wallweed:** send me a pic of him

**kamalb0ra:** Why?

**wallweed:** a rando you just met offering you a room just sounds sketchy

**wallweed:** i want something to give the police if you end up gutted in the street

**kamalb0ra:** Cynic

**wallweed:** cautious

**kamalb0ra:** Ok hold on

Kamal turned to Boris and asked, “Hey, is it okay if I get your picture real quick?”

“Wha-why would you need that?” Boris was getting nervous. Last few times he had his picture taken, they’d always come out...unpleasant. And not for any reasons of vanity. “I donmt take goode pic-tures, they come out real-ly weirb n I look creppy in themn...”

“My pal just wants to know who I’m staying with,” Kamal said. “He’s concerned, that’s all.”

Boris grimaced. “All right,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to make your friend worry about you.”

“Okay, lemme just...” Luckily the phone had a front-facing camera, not all that common in the phones given out by his former superiors, so Kamal turned and snapped a pic of the both of them. Despite Boris’s warning, it actually came out pretty decent. Well, “decent” in that they were both properly visible and in-frame. Kamal didn’t exactly fancy himself a skilled photographer. “There we go, whaddaya think?” he asked, showing Boris the photo.

“Surprisingly not bad,” Boris said. Kamal nodded and set about sending off the pic while he sat there, pondering why his picture suddenly looked so..._normal_. That weird shadow that hung over him wasn’t there... Was it due to the train’s bright lights? Or had something about him changed somehow...?

**kamalb0ra:** Here ya go you paranoid plant, visual evidence

**kamalb0ra:** (I'm the shorter one obviously)

**wallweed:** huh

**wallweed:** a shark

**wallweed:** guy looks like a softy

**kamalb0ra:** He's a florist, they generally are right? :^)

**wallweed:** wait wtf is that in his pocket

**wallweed:** looks like a damn arm

“_What?!_” Kamal glanced down at Boris’s coat pocket, and sure enough, a little arm with green skin and a long blue sleeve was sticking out. “Ohhh god...Boris what is that?”

“Hm?” Boris followed Kamal's gaze down and laughed a bit. “Oh, that’s just my little friend.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his puppet likeness. “He helps me feel at ease at times. I felt it would be easy-er to bring him along this way in case I needed him.”

“Cool.” Kamal gave a slightly shaky thumbs-up. “A little weird, but to each their own I guess.”

**kamalb0ra:** It's just a weird toy...that looks just like a tiny him

**wallweed:** wtf shark man

**kamalb0ra:** I mean I'm not judging

**kamalb0ra:** May look a lil creepy but it's harmless

**kamalb0ra:** No law against adults havin toys

**wallweed:** don't say i didn't warn you when you get eaten

**kamalb0ra:** SHUT UP

\-----

By the time the train arrived at Inkopolis Square, the night sky had become cloudy and a light rain was starting to fall. Boris didn’t mind so much, but the dripping water from overhead made Kamal nervous. After all, having grown up under an artificial sky meant that any “rain” was really leaks in foundation. That and the whole aversion that Octolings had to water in the first place, much like their squid counterparts. He thanked the night's weird luck for him that Boris had brought an umbrella and was more than happy to share.

They soon came upon a small building, which looked more like the shop that Boris had mentioned opening rather than a house. “Here we are,” he said as he took out a small keyring and unlocked the back door. “The ground floor is going to be the shop, while the home part is up-stairs.”

The shop’s interior was dark, an obvious thing to point out as its owner had been away, and there wasn’t yet a single sign of its intended wares. Just a counter with a register and lots of unoccupied floor space. “The place is kinda empty,” Kamal said. “Guessing that’ll change once you get better settled in, huh.”

“Of course! I had to get my per-son-al things brought over first, after all.” Boris made his way to the door to the upstairs apartment while Kamal busied himself with trying to shake out the umbrella without getting any on himself. By the time he’d just given up and tossed the soggy thing onto the floor, he found himself alone in the shop. With an unlit set of enclosed stairs to climb. Greeeeat. He cringed inwardly as he slowly and carefully took each step, keeping a near death grip on the railing. Despite the climb not being all that high, Kamal felt out of breath once he’d gotten to the top and into the apartment. “Are you okay?” Boris asked once he saw Kamal enter. He’d already removed his coat and hat by now, showing off the delightfully obnoxious orange and yellow flower-print button-up that he’d been wearing underneath.

“Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just...” Kamal took a second to catch his breath. “Stairs. Makes me nervous.”

“Oh, I’m sorrey,” Boris said. “Maybe I should get some ‘lights’ in their...” He then smiled and asked, “Have you eaten any-thing yet?”

“Not since lunch, I don’t think,” Kamal said as he sat down on the couch. It was satisfyingly comfortable after several hours of firm car seat cushions and the slightly sticky train seat. “Why, you makin’ something?"

“No, I don’t have any groceries at the moment,” Boris said. “I was going to order ‘take-out’. Does pizza sound good?”

“Uh, sure, sounds great.” In all honesty he didn’t know how good that sounded, as pizza wasn’t exactly a Thing in Octarian society. But he knew it was food, and food sounded good regardless of what it was.

\-----

Pizza, as it turned out, was amazing. Kamal didn’t know what toppings he would end up liking (he managed to explain this as his family just not eating out that much, which wasn’t entirely untrue), so he had just let Boris picked whatever he’d like and he'd be cool with trying it. And god damn, when the pizza had arrived and he took his first bite he nearly cried from pure bliss. “So why’re you bein’ so nice to me?" Kamal asked as they were cleaning up. “We literally just met less than a couple hours ago and you’re trusting me enough to not only pay for a train ticket, but let me stay at your house and even feed me. What’s your deal?”

Boris shrugged. “I don't have any ‘deal’, I don’t think,” he said. “You just seemed in a bad way. Don’t you think it’s easy-er to believe people when their seemingly in trouble and help rather than always think they want to trick you?” He let out a small laugh. “Besides, if you were upp to some-thing, I think you would have done that by now.”

“I guess,” Kamal said. “Still, even if you don’t want anything from this, I can’t just take all your kindness without at least repaying you for it. If there's anything I can do along those lines...”

“Well, now that you mention it, I probabaly could use some help in get-ting the shop running,” Boris admitted. “I have the tendancy to get dis-trac-ted or too focused on one thing, and those things might make running a shop all by myself a bit difficult. But if I had some-one else to help, things could go more smoothly!”

“Sooo...you need an employee.” Kamal nodded. “Sure, if you’re hiring, I guess I can take the job.”

Boris smiled, his many rows of teeth somehow not as unnerving this time. “Thamk you somuch!” he exclaimed. He took hold of Kamal’s hands and shook them both as he bounced up and down on his heels. “Well, I’m going to go clean up before bed,” he said. “I shouldn’t be too long, if I remember from last time I was here to organize ‘things’ there should be blankets and an extra pil-low in the closet over there.” He gave a friendly little wave before he made his way around the corner, presumably to the bathroom.

Now alone again, Kamal decided to follow that suggestion and look for one of those blankets. He opened the closet and found a few, along with what looked like a stack of old tapes and a couple of coats in a similar style to the one he had been wearing on the train. He sorted through the available blankets and picked out what felt the most comfortable (wisely avoiding the pink one with the ribbon trim – even Octarians, former or otherwise, knew to avoid the dreaded Inevitable Scratchy Blanket) and tossed it onto the couch where he’d be sleeping. His unopened bag had also been there since his arrival, and as he’d have to start getting ready for bed soon too he reached in and grabbed some things.

Geez, Boris sure was taking a long time in there. Kamal was hesitant to go and check if he was done – after all, maybe there was something on that pizza that hadn’t agreed with the him and he needed more time in there, and whatever the reason may be what right did he have to tell someone to hurry up in the bathroom in _his own house?_ – but his nightly oral hygiene routine was so rigidly set that not being able to partake in it often delayed or made it nearly impossible for him to sleep regardless of any sort of noises that might keep him up. Screw it. He was gonna go ask, with every intention of being as polite as possible about it. He took one of his toothbrushes and the opened tube of toothpaste and made his way to where the bathroom was, seeing that the door was still closed and the light inside was still shining through the crack underneath. “Boris?” he called. “You done in there?” No answer. He lightly knocked on the door, surprised that it opened slightly, apparently not having been closed all the way.

As soon as the door made a sharp _creeeak_ sound upon opening, there came a gargled scream from within and the sounds of frantic splashing.

“Oh my god!” Kamal knew that if he went in there he’d more than likely see Boris in a state that they were absolutely NOT close enough for either of them to see each other in, but he’d handle the embarrassment later. He pushed the door open the rest of the way and rushed in. “Boris are you oka—” he started to ask, but immediately began screaming himself.

There was a huge shark – a goddamn _SHARK_ in the _TUB_, flailing about and getting water all over the place. “KAMLAL DOBT LOOK IME NOT DESEMT!!” he shouted in a panic. Yup, that was definitely Boris. Guess that answered the question of whether or not Sharklings actually did have an alternate form like Inklings and Octolings did.

“Aaahh, I’m sorry!” Kamal shouted, swiftly covering his eyes with a hand even though he doubted anything...compromising would be visible on Boris’s altered form. “I was just gonna ask if you were done, I didn't mean to—oh god—”

He lowered his hand slightly, seeing that Boris had seemingly shifted back into his humanoid form and was leaning on the side of the tub, though the shape of a tail barely visible in the end of the tub his torso wasn’t taking up made it clear it was only a partial shift. “It’s’is o-kay, I’m fimne, you didm’t do any-thing wrong on purpose,” he said, still trying to calm himself down. “I guess I just...fell-a-sleep in the bath...” He gave a nervous smile and added, “Good thing I can't ‘drown’, right?”

“Yeah, that’s great,” Kamal said. “Listen, I’m just gonna leave my stuff on the sink, I’ll let you finish up in peace.”

“All right. I’ll try to be quick in hear.”

Kamal dropped his stuff on the sink counter and quickly shut the door, making his way back to the couch. Well, that was super awkward. He was surprised that anyone would be calm enough in all that water to just fall asleep in it, then again maybe Sharklings were able to swim normally in water like those jellyfish people he’d seen during his earlier hitchhiking. He doubted they had ink abilities, anyway.

Soon enough, Boris came around the corner, now thankfully fully dressed in a t-shirt that had a cheesy slogan with the picture of a flower with a cowboy hat and a pair of lounge pants patterned with...rubber ducks swimming in soap bubbles, of all things. In Kamal’s very professional opinion, he looked rather cute in that outfit. (okay so it wasn’t _exactly_ a professional opinion) “So were you able to find ev-er-y-thing okay?” Boris asked, still patting his fin-hair dry with a towel.

“Yeah, everything was fine.” Kamal held up the blanket he’d grabbed as if to illustrate that.

“Well, the bath-room is free now,” Boris said. “I’ll be going to bed, but if you need any-thing else just let me know, okay?”

“Thanks,” Kamal said. “I’m gonna go to bed too once I’m done in there.” He started to head to the bathroom, but before he’d passed the corner he added, “Really, thanks again for doing all this for me. It means a lot.”

“It’s no prob-lem,” Boris said with a smile. “Good night!”

As Kamal made his way to the bathroom, Boris entered his new bedroom. It was a lot nicer than the bedroom in his previous apartment; the walls were a soft lavender rather than ugly peeling yellow wallpaper, there was brilliantly polished hardwood flooring with a brand new and still incredibly fluffy rug, a large wardrobe with a mirror stood by the wall, and the bed was much bigger than his old one. Still not big enough to hold his entire body length (would it _kill_ furniture makers to create an affordable bed that was longer than seven feet? he understood that he was very much a height outlier, but _still_), but he tended to sleep in a more curled-up position so he fit just fine when he’d last tested it with that in mind.

As he got into bed, he could hear some strange sounds coming from the direction of the bathroom. It sounded like Kamal, and it sounded like he was..._really_ enjoying brushing his teeth. Probably a bit too much. Boris raised an eyebrow at these declarations of delight, but he decided to just shrug it off. Everyone was into something different, after all. With that justification easing his mind, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

\-----

His eyes shot open. The room was still dark, and he was kind of sinking into the crack between the couch cushions. His body felt heavy, but there was nothing on top of him except for the blanket. Kamal glanced around the room, only vaguely aware of where he was, too wary to try and move. Was this heaviness a symptom of sleep paralysis? He’d never experienced it before and he couldn’t remember if this was one, but there’s a first time for everything...

Eyes. A pair of glowing red eyes were drawing closer to him, whatever form they belonged to obscured in shadow. Okay, now he _knew_ this was a symptom, seeing freaky shadow people. He couldn’t suppress his instinct to try and scream in pure terror...and it turned out that he could. So okay, good, he wasn’t actually experiencing sleep paralysis. But that meant _the shadow thing was real **OH GOD**_. Still screaming, he then proceeded to throw the pillow into the darkness at the general direction of the eyes, and when he missed he shifted into octopus form and hid under the blanket.

“It’s o-kay, Kamal, it’s just me!” a familiar voice said from the darkness. The eyes made their way into the moonlight coming through the window and he could see part of Boris’s face. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Nope, you’re good!” Kamal replied a bit too forcefully, still underneath the blanket. It’s not like he could show his face now, the anxiety was somehow keeping him from shifting back into humanoid form. “I just thought someone broke in, it’s fine! I’m fine! Definitely no need to come any closer to check on me!”

Boris let out a small chuckle. “You know, un-less I literally scared the pants off of you, there’s no ‘need’ to hide from me,” he said. “I have seen Octo-lings before. You have no-thing to be afraid of.”

There was a moment of silence. “You...you _knew?_” Kamal finally asked in a small voice, pushing back the blanket with a shaky tentacle. “When did you figure it out?”

“When I first saw you,” Boris said. He pointed to his head with a grin. “The little nubs on your head are on the top, and Ink-lings have theirs on the bottom. It’s is a clear give-a-way when you know what to look for.” As Kamal shifted into humanoid form and self-consciously grabbed at his tentacle-hair, he quickly added, “I’m sure that no-one is going to make a big ‘deal’ even if they also figure it out! Ink-lings don’t tento dwell on things like That.”

“Guess you’re right,” Kamal said, returning the smile with an awkward one of his own. “When I was hitchhiking to the station everyone just thought I had weird hair, heh...”

“But now I’m curious,” Boris said. He sat down on the armchair that was beside the couch, not wanting to position himself too close in case it made Kamal more antsy than he already seemed to be. “What is it that brought you here in the first place if you’re so worried people will no-tice? You dom’t have to answer if you do not want to, of course.”

“It was that song. The Calamazoo-thing or whatever you called it.” Kamal sighed. “Calamari, that’s it. But yeah, it’s really that simple. I was observing a fight between this random Inkling kid and DJ Octavio – leader of the Octarians, that’s his name, and yes he _insists_ on us calling him DJ – and then all of a sudden that song just started playing out of nowhere and I just...it felt like I woke up. Like I realized that I wasn’t just some tiny part in a big machine, but I was _me_. And I couldn’t stay in a society that would likely try and crush that realization, so I got out. And now here I am.” He couldn’t help but laugh. “I know you probably don’t get it...”

“No, I think I under-stand,” Boris said. “I heard the same song cut into my radio signal, and it brought back memories of an old friend. Hold on just a moment.” He got up and went into his room, quickly coming back with the tin of seeds. “Here they are,” he said, opening the tin to show Kamal the tooth-shaped seeds within. “Erythronium. I bought these years ago in a little sea-side town. They’re incredibly difficult to grow, but I managed one. My special lily, he was my first real friend and he would sing me that song when bad things hap-pened.”

“A flower..._sung_ to you?” Kamal shrugged. “There’s probably weirder things out there.”

“Even if it was not real, that’s how it felt to me, any-way,” Boris said. “I’ve allways felt like I could ‘hear’ flowers, if that’s is even the right word to describe it. I’d stopped hear-ing them as well as I use-to for awhile unless they were very upset, but ever since I herd that song it’s been coming back more clearlery than ever.” He gave a small, slightly sad smile. “Flowers like makeing people ‘happy’. I just wamt to make people hap-py too.”

“The world could do with some more people with that sort of goal,” Kamal said. “And y’know what? Even if your flower shop doesn’t end up workin’ out as well as you want, you’ve already made at least one person happier than he had been.”

“I’m glad.”

With that little talk out of the way, and having opened up to one another quite a bit more than either of them had planned, they both agreed it would be best to try and get back to sleep. They’d have plenty of time to get to know each other more tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is, the start of something beautiful. Pretty sure this is the longest chapter yet, and honestly I think it speaks for itself for the most part. Also I’m pretty sure the bath scene is the only time I’ve written something even close to risque? I mean, it’s played for comedy and Habit’s in shark form, but still the implication of walking in on someone while their bits are out is pretty dang close. Not to mention the _sounds_ that Kamal’s making when he’s brushing his teeth, but just...imagine the canon dialogue where you brush his teeth in-game. Now that I’ve said that, I don’t know if that makes that part better or worse, hehehe... Also it’s at this point that I realize my buffer has come to an end, so unless I finish chapter 5 before next Wednesday this is where weekly updates are gonna stop. I don’t think finishing chapter 5 before then is looking very likely for...certain...reasons..._let’s just say I’m waist deep in Pokémon okay._ And I try to limit myself to two hours or so a day so I don’t burn myself out or end up not getting things done but the pokey-mans got me somethin’ fierce. XD
> 
> ...is it bad that I’m currently brainstorming another SFM crossover AU entirely? I promise I won’t do an actual fic of it until I at least get this one to where I feel is a good stopping point, if I do at all, cuz a fic for _that_ AU would be loooong. Let’s just say it involves crossing with a series of notoriously long RPGs...one entry in which recently got a Smash rep. I’ll letcha stew on that for a bit, at least if you haven’t caught wind of my Tumblr ramblings and know what I’m talking about already.


	5. Preparations and Venting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brings up Habit's childhood trauma, only slightly altered from his canon backstory to work better with the fact that this version of him is a shark, so just be prepared for that.

Even though Kamal had agreed to help with the flower shop, Boris didn’t want to make him get up as early as he had. He was very clearly a night owl, and he was going to respect that. Still, he _did_ have to get some more supplies to spruce the place up (not to mention groceries, for as delicious as it is one cannot live on takeout alone), so he decided to let Kamal sleep in while he went out to do shopping.

The traffic was relatively sparse for such an urban environment at this time of day. It felt good being behind the driver’s seat again after his time apart from the old car, he’d honestly missed it. He didn’t miss that Splatfest traffic he’d encountered the first time he’d tried to look into buying the soon-to-be shop that had initially convinced him to leave his car at the place once he’d actually bought it, but there apparently hadn’t been anything that big for the past few weeks. A relief and a shame, if he had to be honest. Even when stuck in that traffic jam he could see the celebration’s light shows and fireworks from the road, and it let him imagine at least a little bit how much fun that must have been for those present.

There may not be any major celebration, but the mood in Boris’s car was still high. It was going to be the first full day spent at his new place, most of which he’d planned to spend on making the shop ready to impress. He also had to stock up on seeds and bulbs, after all you can’t open a flower shop without having some flowers to sell. Paint and shelves and plant babies and groceries, in that order. Maybe while he was getting paint and such, if it was at another branch of that hardware store he’d worked at he could get a copy of his keys made. No sense having a roommate that had no way to safely leave or return on his own terms, that would just be rude.

He really hoped Kamal would be comfortable being there alone in the meantime...

\-----

“Are you really ‘sure’ I can’t use an employee dis-count?”

Boris’s first stop did end up being another branch of that hardware store, and now he was standing at the checkout with five cans of paint, four self-assembly shelving units, seven boxes of flower bulbs, two boxes of pots, a bill for the key copy, and one very annoyed Inkling cashier. “Look, buddy, I know you said you used to work at another location, but unless you’re a _current_ employee you don’t get that option,” she said with a sigh. “Now please just let me ring these up normally, there’s more customers waiting behind you.”

“I figured as much,” Boris said, “I just wamted to check.” The cashier rolled her eyes and just started scanning his items as quickly as possible. In all fairness, Boris _did_ understand why she was so annoyed, as he’d had to field a bunch of stupid questions back in his corporate retail days. It was almost like people’s brains slid right out of their behind once they entered a store. Though he’d always thought he was better about that due to the experience. Hell, why was he even _asking_ about a no-longer-applicable employee discount, he had plenty of money to cover this even if the prices were on the “these are about to go on sale so we’ll raise the price so sale can just be normal price” markup...

Just as things were finishing up, his phone started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket, seeing that it was a number he didn’t recognize. He shrugged and took the call anyway. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“_Do you always answer the phone so formally?_”

“Oh, Kamal!” Boris exclaimed. He briefly moved the phone away from his face to thank the cashier, then continued with the call as he made his way outside. “Sorrey, I didn’t recog-nize your number, that’s my Trick to make automatic calls go away. Do you need any-thing?”

“_Yeah, I kinda need an answer more than anything,_” Kamal said. “_I used the last of the toilet paper roll and I was looking for a replacement – I found ‘em, don’t worry – and there was something...weird in the cabinet? I don’t wanna pry but this is gonna bug me all day if I don’t ask about it._”

“And that is?”

“_Boris...I’m not gonna judge, but...why on earth do you have a jar full of teeth hanging out in your bathroom?_”

“Oh, those are Mine,” Boris chuckled. “I donmt have anywhere better to put them, so I just keep them in the teeth jar.”

“_I wanna say this isn’t normal, but then again I’m not a shark so I don’t know what’s really normal for you..._”

“You never saved you’re baby teeth?”

A brief moment of silence passed before Kamal responded. “_We don’t...I dunno about Inklings exactly, but Octolings generally don’t shed teeth. I don’t think we even lose ‘em at all unless there’s actual damage or decay._”

“Yes, I’d for-gotten about that,” Boris said. He then realized just what he’d said, and he really hoped that Kamal wouldn’t ask about...

“_Wait. ‘Forgotten’? Did someone else find the teeth jar before or something?_”

“I have-to Go, need to put this in the car!” He hung up before Kamal could try and ask more. Sure, the guy had said he wouldn’t pry, but curiosity was an addictive thing and Boris really didn’t want to think about that more than necessary to begin with. Well, at least he had one of his major shopping trips that day taken care of. Groceries next, then back home.

\-----

“So what exactly is the aesthetic you’re going for here?” Kamal asked, standing up to stretch his legs out from kneeling by the shop’s baseboards. Boris had long since returned with everything and now they were working together to paint the walls of the soon-to-be flower shop, with Boris taking care of the big areas with a large paint roller (not an ink-fueled weapon, just a regular painting tool) and Kamal getting everything the roller couldn’t reach properly with a small brush.

“I’m not real-ly sure,” Boris admitted. “Mostly just relaxing, now that I think about it. Maybe I’ll paint some friendley designs all over, things that would put people at ‘ease’.” He put his roller down into the tray of paint and flipped it up a bit too fast, causing some excess paint to fly off and land on Kamal’s head. “Oops! Sorry about that!”

Kamal winced and tried quickly to brush the paint off of him. “It’s fine,” he said. “Just stings a little, that’s all.”

“I guess paint and ink don’t mix very well, do they?” Boris asked with a laugh.

“No they do not, but at least this is a similar enough color to what I’ve got at the moment.” Kamal sighed. “Maybe we should be working on different walls instead of the same one at once.”

“Good i-dea.” Boris picked up the paint tray and moved over to the next wall, which still had the garish sepia-adjacent orange and mushy pea green paint job the last owners had left. He looked it over, wondering if maybe they should’ve put some primer over this nonsense first or just found a way to strip the old paint off completely. “What do you think abooout...a pattern of vines with bige blooms on them going up this back wall?” he asked with a grin.

Kamal nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like it’d look cool,” he replied. He took a look at the parts they had painted so far and smiled. “Y’know, this color is a real nice choice,” he said. “It’s chill, easy on the eyes, it’ll probably make all the flowers you’re gonna eventually have in here stand out more.” He sighed, fiddling with the brush in his hands. “It’s a real far cry from the kind of thing I’m used to, but like in a good way.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” Kamal smiled. “Actually that could describe a lot about this last little bit, if I gotta be honest. Inkling society in general, feels like there’s no real pressure to tow the line or whatever. Only expectations are to be ‘fresh’ or whatever, and even that’s basically just code word for self-expression if I interpreted it right.”

“There _is_ still some of ‘that’ hear,” Boris said sadly. “It’s just not a cul-tural thing...”

Kamal gave him a concerned look. “You know someone who went through that sort of thing, huh?” he asked.

“Well, that woll is look-ing pretty ‘bare’, don’t you thinmk???” Boris immediately set about painting the wall, humming rather loudly as he did so.

Apparently that was the end of that line of conversation. At any rate, Kamal decided it was best not to push it, instead getting back to the baseboards with his little detail brush.

\-----

The weeks passed and the flower shop was coming along quite nicely. The walls were fully painted along with the addition of a few murals, some tasteful like the rose-covered vines on the back wall, others admittedly a bit tacky like the large portrait Boris had made of himself holding a large flower and a watering can (and he had also wanted to make a similar one of Kamal surrounded by lotuses on the opposite wall, but he had been too self-conscious of having his likeness on the wall basically staring at everyone to agree to that). All the shelves were set up and things were being properly organized. It was while Kamal was helping to sort files that would be kept at the front that he came across something strange.

Tucked in the back of a nondescript folder among a bunch of miscellaneous old files, almost as though it was purposefully hidden, was a crisp document made from what was clearly much nicer paper than everything else in there. He gave it a quick glance-over, seeing that it was a university degree of sorts. Most of it was of course self-glorifying fluff for the university in question, but his eyes were easily directed to the important bits: “_Boris Habit_” and “_Doctor of Dental Surgery_”.

“Hey, Boris?” Kamal asked, glancing over at him as he was putting flower pots on a shelf. “How come you’ve never once mentioned you were a dentist?”

A loud clattering sounded through the shop as Boris dropped the thankfully plastic pots he had been organizing. He quickly turned to look at Kamal, whirling his head so fast that his fin-hair smacked into the shelf and knocked over more pots, but he took no notice of this and just stared at him. “Dent...est...?” he repeated. He could barely speak, his throat felt like it was tightening. How could Kamal possibly know? His eyes then traveled down to Kamal’s hands, which were holding..._it_. Oh.

“Yeah, this seems like the sort of thing that would make its way into small talk at the very least,” Kamal said. “Hey, maybe I could start callin’ ya ‘Dr. Habit’ if it's not too weird, hehehe...” A sharp stinging pain suddenly raked across his hand as a surprisingly speedy blur moved through his field of vision. He winced and looked down, seeing that Boris’s degree was gone and replaced with a long paper cut. Stomping could be heard in the direction of the stairs, and Boris was no longer in the lower shop area at all. “Oh boy...”

Clutching his hand to try and keep the stinging to a minimum, Kamal slowly made his way upstairs. Some lights and a new hand railing had thankfully been installed since their initial arrival, but not being able to hold onto said rail still made his ascent a nerve-wracking one, not to mention he was already worried about what he might find when he got up there. Thankfully it wasn’t too long before he figured out where Boris was, as he could hear sobbing and small splashing sounds coming from the open bathroom. Kamal entered the bathroom and saw Boris kneeling in front of the bathtub. The poor guy was crying like he’d never seen an adult cry before outside of fiction or in the mourning of a loved one, and he had his arms in the bathtub moving around in an unseen level of water as he did so. As he cautiously approached, he could see the degree in the water, which Boris was repeatedly dunking and trying to destroy. “Waysted yeares...” Boris was muttering to himself. “Nebver wanmted this... horrable, offul, stopp force-ing me to libve youre lyfe...”

“Uh...you okay?” Kamal asked. He then realized that was a stupid question. Clearly he wasn’t okay, anyone could see that. “I mean, what are you doing?”

“Some-thing I shoed-ov done yeares ago,” Boris said between dunks. The paper the degree was printed on had started to wrinkle and fray, but every letter printed upon it was still very visible. Must’ve been a waterproof type of ink or something.

Kamal fidgeted a bit, still holding his paper cut hand. “You, uh, you wanna talk about this?” he asked. “Maybe get your feelings out?” Boris shook his head, not looking up from his solemn self-given task. “Okay...would you rather be left alone for a bit, then?” A brief pause of paper-dunking, and a nod. “All right,” Kamal said. “I’ll be in the living room if you need someone.” He thought, then added, “I got a bit of a paper cut from that, mind if I take care of it real quick?” Another nod from the crying mess that was Boris. Kamal quickly took care of his hand (apparently Boris had picked up some of that liquid bandage stuff, so he used some of that as he figured it would probably work best in that location) and left Boris to take care of whatever it was he was doing.

It was an hour or so later when Boris finally came out of the bathroom and joined Kamal on the couch. His forearms were still visibly damp and dripping a little bit of water onto the carpet, but he didn’t seem to care. “Couldn’t get ‘rid’ of it,” he said, sounding more like a hollow statement than an admission of defeat. His eyes were distant and unfocused, likely from the massive cry-fest that had taken place.

“That’s a shame.” Kamal didn't want to pry, even as the curiosity was eating him up inside. It wasn’t his place to ask, but still...

The awkward silence hung in the air before Boris spoke. “My par-ents wanted me to be a dent-est,” he said. “It was what they were, so I was supposed to be onme too. I want-ed to be a florist, and that wasn’t acceptable to them.”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that," Kamal said. He figured that’s what Boris had been keen to stop talking about while they were painting the shop. “Funneling kids into one life path just ends up making bitter people.”

“That’s not even the ‘_wurst_’ they did,” Boris said. He took in a deep breath. The only other people he’d told this to were his bad ex-therapist and Dr. Tanning, but something about Kamal made him feel a bit more comfortable about bringing it up. He felt like he wouldn’t judge. “My father...he hit me. A lot. Most of it blurs to-gether, but I can distinctly remembrer when I tried to cheer them upp with my newly grown Lily. I was kissying my lily and then Dad was at the door and...” He couldn't bring himself to say it. “He...he...”

“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to,” Kamal said. “I can pick it out from context. That’s...awful. Just absolutely awful.”

“He hurt my smile.” Boris didn’t think he could cry anymore, but even so a couple tears trailed down his cheek. “Look.” He put a finger in his mouth and pulled the opening a bit wider to show Kamal further along the rows of teeth, pointing at a specific one that was misaligned from the rest. “Raih eah,” he said, taking his finger back out of his mouth once he was sure Kamal had seen it properly. “It’s nev-er come back ‘in’ right sinse. Same four a couple others. I have to keep a pear of plyers in the bath-room for when they start botherimg me again.”

“Oh _god_...”

“I don’t even remember what my momther did, and that’s what scares me the most,” he continued. “It either means she did some-thing so bad that eye blocked it ‘out’, or she did no-thing but ignor my promblems. And if that’s is the case, on the onme hand she did nothing, but at the sayme time she did _noth-thing!_ Which of-corse meanms she never helped me...”

Kamal said nothing, mostly due to not really knowing what would be appropriate to say. He decided to just gently put a hand on Boris’s shoulder. After a while, he said, “You didn’t deserve any of that. No one does.”

“I know that,” Boris said, wiping away the second set of tears. “Even be-four I started getting ‘help’ I knew. The first chance I gote after I graduated, I left and nev-er looked back. No con-tackt or anythimg, not that it was ‘hard’ comsidering they never tryed to get in touch either. Two be fare, I domt know if at the time I was more up-set about the harm done to my lily or to me.” He sighed. “I guess that does-ent matter. Just because lily forgave them does ‘not’ mean I have too.”

“Of _course_ not!" Kamal exclaimed. “What they did was _completely_ unforgivable! And I know you said you’re not in contact with them anymore, but if they ever show their face around you, I know how to handle a charger. Well, _not that well_, but two shots is better than no experience at all. Just tell me what to look out for.”

Boris let out a bit of a hollow laugh. “You can’t do any-thing to themn,” he said. “Not un-less your willing to ‘dig’.”

“Dig?” Kamal raised an eyebrow. “What...exactly do you mean?”

“Oh, they’re dead.” Boris tried not to smile at that statement, even though it felt really good to remind himself they couldn’t hurt him anymore. “Both of them where killed in a car ack-sedent..a few months ago, I believe. It was a couple weaks before we met, actually. And some-how I was still in there will? Under the wrong name, but I still received inhairitens, and I used it all to do the thing they said I never could.” He actually did let himself smile this time. “If they on-ly new I used their monie to fund ‘my’ dreams and not following their plans. They funded my free-dom from there expectations.”

“That's...” Kamal was torn between possible responses. On the one hand, you’re normally supposed to say something like “_I’m sorry for your loss_” when you hear someone had a death in the family, right? But the way Boris spoke about his parents, not to mention what he said they did, made it very clear that this wasn’t a loss to him. “I’m glad you’ll never have to deal with that again.”

“Me two,” Boris said. They sat in silence for a bit more, then he added in a bit of an off-handed tone, “Though I camt help but won-der what was going thru their minds when the rocks fell...”

“Rocks?” Kamal asked. “Hang on, you said they were in a wreck.”

Boris shook his head. “No, not a wreck,” he said, “but I guess I did word it to soumd that ‘way’, my bad. It's probabaly more accurate to say a nature accident, from what I was told there was a sudden rock-slide on Mount Nantai and they got caught inn it. They were in the car tho, so that’s is just the term I think of it as.”

Mount Nantai...why did that name sound familiar? And a rock slide...well, rocks could’ve slid from... “Um...just curious...what...sort of location is Mount Nantai?” Kamal asked hesitantly.

“That’s right, you wouldn’t no,” Boris said. “It’s an old volcano neer a ‘lake’ that useto be part of a river, and there’s a lot of green-ry around their and I’ve heard it’s really loveley...Why do you ask?”

If it weren’t for the fact that he literally didn’t have a spine, Kamal would be feeling chills running down it in that moment. That pit forming in his stomach was more than enough to make up for that, as were the beads of anxiety sweat he could feel forming on his forehead. “Oh my god...” he muttered. “Oh god...oh god, oh no, oh _god_...” He pulled his legs up onto the couch and clutched them in his arms. “I’m so sorry...I’m sorry, Boris, I’m so, so sorry...”

“Sorrey for what?” Boris asked. “You did no-thing wrong, it’s not your fault that you found my degree, and you couldn’t possibly have—”

“_I killed them!_” Kamal shouted, the unexpected outburst causing Boris to reel back. “_We_ killed them, but pushing that thing off was my idea so it might as well have been me...”

“I don’t...what are you say-ing?”

"When I was escaping Octo Valley, I was with a bunch of others,” Kamal explained. “We ran into some trouble, and long story short me and the soldier lady fought off a goon, but then his weapon was gonna explode so we had to get it away from everyone else...” He buried his face in his hands. “That must’ve caused the rock slide. And then the rock slide killed...I killed your parents. I’m...I know they were terrible to you, but still, I’m sor—” He was suddenly pulled into a very strong bear hug, and even with his surprise in that moment he was thankful to be an invertebrate. “What—Boris?”

“Thank you, Kamal!” Boris exclaimed. “Thamk you somuch!”

“You’re...welcome?” Kamal was confused. He’d just admitted to _manslaughter_, why was he being _thanked?_ “Y-you’re sure that's the right thing to say?”

“Abso-lutely.” Boris pulled away slightly, his eyes still wet with tears but a smile on his face nonetheless. “I could not have made this big change in my life with-out you, in more ways then one. You had no idea, of-course, but in a round-about manner your actions might’ve saved my life.”

“Really?”

Boris nodded. “I was in a real-ly bad place before this, and once I got the idea to finally try to follow my dreams I’d put all my energy into it,” he said. “If I hadn’t been abel to actually make this work, I might have just...gave up on every-thing. In the worst way.”

“Well, I’m really glad you didn’t give up, then.”

“Me too.”

They both sat there for a bit, just enjoying each other’s presence. “Y’know,” Kamal said after a while, “if you want, we can take the pieces of that degree and burn them when they’ve dried out. Just a suggestion. It’d probably be more effective than soaking it into oblivion, at least.”

“Oh, we absolutely could,” Boris said with a laugh. “And may-be we can make it a proper ‘bon’ fire and roast marshmellows while we’re at it.”

Kamal smiled. “Hot dogs, too?”

“Hot-dogs, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let’s get some sadness with at least a little bit of healing up in here! And yeah, for those who hadn’t put the pieces together already, there’s confirmation of the cause and effect that led to the death of the trash Habits. Maybe next chapter we’ll get some actual flower business going on. :3c


	6. Grand Opening

The weeks had gone by rather quickly, and the flower shop was almost completely ready to be opened. All that was left was to put up the signage, which Boris and Kamal were hanging from the awning above the door. “I gotta ask again, are you really sure about the name?” Kamal asked, trying his best to keep his balance on the ladder while holding onto a corner of the sign.

“Of coarse!” Boris exclaimed. “It only made cents to name the shop like this. Not to men-tion you _did_ let me put your name on the busyness license as co-owner, so you deserve to have a little public recognition.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kamal said with a laugh. “It does have a nice ring to it, hehe.”

The sign was soon secured and Kamal climbed down the ladder so that he could admire their handiwork with Boris, whose height meant he hadn’t needed anything more than a small step stool to reach the shop’s awning. It was just as colorful as the rest of the shop, both exterior and interior, with large multicolored letters surrounded by little drawings of flowers. “BoriBora Flora,” Kamal read aloud. “Rolls right off the tongue.”

“I camnt wait un-till we open tomorrow!” Boris exclaimed. He was practically bouncing up and down in excitement, and honestly, the excitement was contagious. Kamal really hoped everything went well, for Boris’s sake if for no other reason. He didn’t know how the potential disappointment of this falling through would affect his...roommate? Business partner?

Friend. Boris was _definitely_ a friend at the very least by this point. There’s no way you let a guy cry on your shoulder about how badly his parents screwed up and consider yourselves anything less.

\-----

It’d been an hour since their grand opening. To be fair, it wasn't all that “grand” as Boris hadn’t wanted to make too big of a fanfare about things, but it was a nice little celebration. The flowers were all set out neatly and everything was set up just so. No customers yet, then again they’d literally been open for an hour. “Whant if no-one showes up?” Boris asked, more to himself than to Kamal. “I’me so eggsiteded but worreyed, maybe noboddy wants flowlers...”

“Boris, it’s not even lunch yet,” Kamal reminded him. “Maybe no one’s come yet because they do this kind of thing on their lunch break or something. Give it some time, all right?”

“I-no, I ‘know’, its just...”

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the door opening, the bell above it ringing as did so. In walked a horseshoe crab, dressed in a somewhat militaristic-looking outfit with brown gloves and an olive work apron adorned with several logo patches. His large goggles magnified his eyes, which were looking around the shop curiously. “Ah, good morning, sirs!” the customer said, greeting them with a friendly wave. “Don’t tell me I’m your first customer, now!”

“As a mat-ter of fact, you ‘are’!” Boris exclaimed. “Welcome to BoriBora Flora! What can we do fore you?” The previous anxiety seemed to have vanished completely, or maybe he just had a strong customer service persona.

“Actually, I’m partially here to bring you something,” the customer said, “but I _would_ also like to get a nice bouquet if it’s not too much trouble. You know, with Mother’s Day coming up and all that.”

Boris couldn’t help but let out a little laugh. “My new friend, as a flow-er shope, bouquets are what we dew,” he said with a smile. “Well, it’s what we _will_ do. Anie-way, what do you have in mind? Does she have any prefrences?”

“In all honesty, I usually just get whatever ‘Mother’s Day bundle’ I see first at the grocery store when I’m getting her chocolate,” the customer said with a nervous smile. “And she generally appreciates anything, anyway. Soooo...I was wondering if you had any suggestions?”

“Oh, letting me get creyative? I like it!” Boris giddily made his way to the variety of flowers they’d already stocked, motioning the customer to look for himself in case he might get any ideas for additions himself. “So there are some Basics that tend too be associated with Mother’s Day,” he explained. “Car-nations and tulips are popular choices, as well as lilies—my _personal_ favorite type of flow-er, if I must be honest.”

“Roses are always good for everything, right?” Kamal asked. “Hang on, no, those are more of a romance thing aren’t they, that’d make it weird.”

“He ‘did’ say she apereciates anything, so I don’t think actual flower language is of much consurn,” Boris reminded him. He turned back to the customer and asked, “Isn’t that right, mister...umm...”

“Oh, right, it’s Sheldon,” the customer said, holding out his hand to shake, which Boris accepted with a grin. "I actually just finished relocating Ammo Knights on the other end of the Galleria. Guess we’re store neighbors now!”

“It’s verie nice to meet you, Sheldon,” Boris said. “I’m Boris Habit, and that is my freimd and part-ner Kamal Bora.” Kamal waved at him as he was introduced, having chosen that moment to take a drink of water.

“Nice to meet you both, too,” Sheldon replied. He gave Kamal an odd look, but shook his head as apparently whatever thought he had was not as worth bringing up as the one he had next. “So, by ‘partner’ do you mean just business partners or like romantic partners?” he asked. “Either way, you two seem to work good together—”

Water spewed across the room as Kamal spat out his drink in surprise, coughing and sputtering as a result. Boris’s green complexion began to turn red, and he tried to respond but all that came out was awkward stammering nonsense. After a while, he cleared his throat and replied, “Thatse quite the...hehe, quite the personnel quest-on to ask, isn’t it?”

“Ah, I’m so sorry, didn’t mean to pry!” Sheldon said. “Let’s just...get back to the flowers, I’ll be less intrusive that way.”

They soon finished putting together the bouquet, which ended up consisting of “standard” Mother’s Day flowers and a few of Boris’s more interesting suggestions that happened to go well with them. “Now I have to let you ‘know’ that you will need too take these to her your-self,” Boris said as he was finishing the arrangement. “We un-fortunatlie don’t have delivery services yet.”

“Yeah, we literally just opened for business this morning,” Kamal added. “You’re not just our first customer of the day, you’re our first customer _ever_.”

“Well then, if that’s the case, I _insist_ on leaving some sort of tip,” Sheldon said, already in the process of getting money for the base price. “Hmm, what’s a good tip for flowers that you pick up at the store yourself...fifteen percent? Or would twenty be better?”

“No, that’s fine!” Boris said with a wave of his hand. “That will not be nessary, I prom-ise.” They proceeded with the transaction sans tip, and afterward Boris asked, “So what was that thinge you wamted to bring o-ver?”

Sheldon’s eyes widened, or at least they appeared to behind his oversized goggles. “Oh shoot, I nearly forgot!” he gasped. He quickly fished something out of his pocket and handed it to Boris. It was a flyer for Turf War, specifically vendor information. “The Turf War officials have decided to relocate the headquarters from Inkopolis Tower and move to Deca Tower here in Inkopolis Square,” Sheldon explained. “In fact, that’s the reason I’ve relocated my business as well. I’m not entirely sure how a flower shop would fit in if you guys wanted to participate somehow, but it was only fair that you were informed either way. And there’s going to be a Splatfest coming up to kick things off, so if you would like to decorate to fit the theme there’s a color selection in the details.”

“Thamk you very much, Sheldon,” Boris said. “We’ll keep this in mind. You have a goode day!” He waved at Sheldon, who in turn gave a little salute (or as best he could manage with the flowers in his arms) and left. “Well-then...” Boris turned to Kamal and smiled. “I think that went really well!”

Kamal gave a small grin back. “Yeah, seems like it did.”

\-----

The rest of the day went by really smoothly with a smattering of other customers, some of which only came in to take a look around but most of them actually bought things. Before they knew it, closing time came around and the first business day was done. “I think we did reely well to-day,” Boris said as the two of them were cleaning up. “Evryone was so happy with their flowers! This was a goode decision after-all.”

“Did you see the way Sheldon looked at me when he was here, though?” Kamal asked, a bit of concern in his voice. “I think he’s suspicious of me, for...well, for obvious reasons.” He fiddled with his tentacle hair as though subconsciously emphasizing what he meant.

“Oh, I’me sure he thought nothing about it,” Boris said. “He probaly just likes your ‘style’!”

“Hope that’s all it is...”

They finished the closing procedure and Kamal headed up to their apartment. Boris stuck around downstairs for a bit, just taking in everything and making sure all the flowers were happy and healthy. Every flower in the shop whispered silent encouragement to him as he checked on them, and with every “_you did good_” and “_great job_” and “_you made so many people happy today_” only he could hear, he knew he was on the right track to turning his life around.

Once he’d finished looking over everything, Boris made his way upstairs. As he entered the apartment, he put the flyer Sheldon had given them on the kitchen table along with his apron. “Re-mind me to look into setting up a delivery service for the shop soon, all-right?” he asked Kamal, who was standing by the running microwave.

“Sure, let’s make a note of that,” Kamal said, nodding. “Honestly surprised you didn’t think of that sooner, hehe.”

“I was just so egg-sighted to open!” Boris said with a laugh. “Guess it just slipped my ‘mind’.” The microwave beeped, and Kamal removed the TV dinner he'd been cooking. “Oh! I was goimg to make stroganoff tonight...”

“Ah, right, I forgot,” Kamal said. “If you still wanna, I can just put this back in the fridge I guess?”

Boris shook his head. “No, go a-head, I can make it tomorow,” he insisted. “The ingredience will keep one extra day, those things dew not.”

“Ain’t _that_ the truth.”

Kamal sat down and started tackling his meal while Boris went about finding something for himself. As Kamal ate, he couldn’t help but ponder something that had been on his mind for a while now. You typically don’t live with someone other than family for this long without at least _briefly_ having the idea flash by... “I’ve been thinking about something that Sheldon mentioned,” Kamal finally said as Boris had put some potstickers in the microwave.

“And what would ‘that’ be?” Boris asked. “Do you...have an enter-est in Turf War?”

“Not, uh, not really, I don’t think,” Kamal stammered. He felt his face getting a little warm thinking about it. “When we were doing introductions, y’know? He thought we might be...might be, ah...romantically inclined? Toward, um, each other?”

Kamal turned to face Boris, and with a bit of surprise he could see he’d gone bright red. “I...I see...” Boris tried to keep his cool, but the thought was starting to get to him as well. “And, uh...whamt do _you_ think ab-out the ideya?”

“Well...” Kamal stirred his food absentmindedly with his fork. “You’re a good friend, Boris, and you’ve done a lot for me while I’ve been topside. It’s gotten to the point where I can barely imagine my future life without you in it. And I’m not gonna lie, I am...I’m pretty sure I’m attracted to you on some level? Like, I've known I’m bi for years now, but it’s still awkward admitting to a guy that I think he’s date material cuz what if he’s only into ladies? It's not as awkward if it’s a girl who’s only into girls for some reason, I guess it’s because then we can be like ‘hell yeah, MLM/WLW solidarity’ and...” He heard an odd humming sound coming from where Boris was standing. He looked back up to see Boris fidgeting anxiously. “You okay, big guy?”

“Yes, I just...Ime just...” Boris swayed a bit, lightly nibbling at the ends of his claw-like fingers. “Kam-al...I think I feele the saym waay.” He couldn’t help but let out a nervous laugh. “I’ve nevver been intrested in women, not reelly, but I’ve nevber been close enugh to a man to no what the love I wamnted would feel like. And I think...bee-ing with you...is what that feeling is like for Me.”

“So you’re saying...?”

“I thimk I love you.”

“I...” It was Kamal’s turn to laugh. “I think I love you too. No, I'm pretty sure I do. More than friend love, I mean.”

This was probably the best chance Boris was going to get. He approached Kamal, bent down slightly to meet his level, and placed a small kiss onto his forehead. As he pulled away, he could see Kamal staring at him in stunned surprise. “Was I...too fore-word?” he asked with apprehension.

“Wh...no, it’s...” Kamal’s shocked expression softened into a nervous smile. “I think you might’ve missed. Just a bit.”

“Is that an inventation to try again?”

“Go right ahead.”

Boris smiled and leaned further, kissing Kamal on the nose this time. “I hope I got it ‘right’ that time,” he said. “Iff your want-ing a lip kissy, that can wait until after din-ner.”

“Yeah, microwaved alfredo isn’t very romantic,” Kamal chuckled. The mild chuckle turned into an elated laugh, and Boris found himself laughing as well. They were both giddy with love, so much that neither noticed that Boris’s potstickers were done until the third impatient microwave been went off.

As the two continued with their dinner, Kamal noticed the flyer that had been placed on the table. He grabbed it and gave it a good look-over, particularly noting the bit about the kickoff Splatfest. “Speaking of stuff that Sheldon brought to mind,” he said, “do you prefer cake or ice cream?”

“Hmm?” Boris raised an eyebrow, but didn't say any further as his mouth was still full.

“That’s apparently the teams for this Splatfest thing,” Kamal clarified. “I’m more of a cake guy myself, got a bit of cold sensitivity in my teeth. What about you?”

Boris thought for a bit. “Ice-cream, problably,” he replied. “Last time I had a cake it left rezzy-due in all my spares and it was _Gross_. Ice creams don’t do that, at least not from my experients.”

“Makes sense,” Kamal said with a nod. “So are we gonna decorate the shop for this thing?”

“I domt see why not!” Boris exclaimed. “It sounds like fun, and it could ‘drum upp some buzz’ for the busyness, after all. Plus flowers work for anie event! ...Except a bonfire or some-thing like that, I guess.”

“Yeah, hehe.” Kamal continued looking over the flyer, which mainly consisted of advertisements for the vendors that would be opening to provide Turf War supplies, the various sponsors of the sport and relevant gear, and the name of some up-and-coming musical duo that would apparently be taking over the announcement show after the Squid Sisters had moved on to bigger and better things. “Soooo you wanna start planning the Splatfest decor after dinner or later?” he asked.

“Maybie later,” Boris said with a smile, his face still noticeably a bit red. “I’m still feeling a littol floaty from the lovey stuff. I've never felt like this be-four, and I really want to saver it.”

Kamal smiled warmly. “Me too," he said. “You, uh...you wanna watch a movie and just enjoy each others’ company for a bit?”

“That would be loveley.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, some characters from Splatoon canon are showing up! (okay, so the Octo Samurai was in chapter 2, but tbh he’s not _that_ much of a character per se) And that Habismal is starting to get some proper attention, hehehehe. *smorch* :3c There will be more Splatoon canon characters introduced in the next chapter, and I’ll also probably introduce some more of the SFM cast as well. Definitely got plans for Wallus to make a physical appearance if nothing else.


	7. Like Ice Cream and Mayonnaise

Roommates, business partners, friends, and now lovers. It was still a little weird to think of themselves that way, even if they’d been dating for a couple weeks by this point. They’d kissed several more times since the night they realized their shared affection, and more importantly they’d been sharing a lot of little moments together.

During the time of their relationship progressing, the Galleria around the flower shop began to progress in its development as well. Three new stores alongside Ammo Knight had opened, and Boris and Kamal were getting along pretty well with their owners. Wallus was coming over a lot to visit Kamal, since he would be in the area anyway as he had been hired as a janitor for the Galleria as a whole, though he was reluctant to visit if only Boris was home. That was perfectly understandable, he was Kamal’s friend and only an acquaintance to Boris, though he still treated him like a potential friend because there was every chance he could be one to him as well.

It was on a day that Wallus was visiting that they’d all three gotten into a discussion about musical tastes. As the Calamari Inkantation was very important to both Boris and Kamal, the topic quickly narrowed to the Squid Sisters and they were playfully debating which one was better. “No, you don’t understand, Callie is _amazing!_” Kamal insisted. “So peppy and optimistic and full of energy, she’s like my sisters when they were her age! And Bomb Rush Blush is just a delight.”

“You just like that won be-cause it has your name in it,” Boris chuckled.

“Wait, _really?_” Kamal quickly looked up the lyrics on his phone. “Son of a butt, you’re right. How’d I never notice?”

“I’me more a fan of Marie, personelly,” Boris said. “Callie is nice for when you’re happie, but Marie’s solo work hits the soul reelly good.”

“What about you, Wall?” Kamal asked. “You got any strong opinions either way?”

Wallus shook his head (or rather the mass of plant fiber that made up his head). “I’m not really a big fan of either of ‘em, to be honest,” he said. “Off the Hook are more along my musical tastes lately.”

“Off the Hook?” The name sounded familiar to both Boris and Kamal, but only to the extent that they’d probably heard it in passing. “I think I know who you’re talking about,” Kamal said after a brief pause. “They’re the duo that are hosting Inkopolis News after the Squid Sisters stepped down, right?”

“Yeah, that’s them,” Wallus said with a nod. “They’re still pretty new, but they’re already going far. Hang on, lemme bring up one of their songs real quick...” He quickly scrolled through his phone, searching for what he probably thought would be the perfect example of their work. “Ah, here we go,” he said after a bit. “Ebb and Flow, their first one. Give it a listen.”

The song was energetic and upbeat, having a similar sort of feel to some of the Squid Sisters’ work yet at the same time wildly different. Boris found himself dancing a little his seat with a smile, but Kamal felt something oddly nostalgic about this music he’d never actually heard before. Why...? “Whatse wrong, calla lily?” Boris asked, using the pet name he’d taken to calling him on occasion. “Is it makeing you uncomforble?”

“No, it’s just...” It then clicked. “Wasabi beats,” he said. Boris and Wallus both gave him a weird look. “There’s Octarian music mixed in that. Or maybe one of the duo _is_ Octarian, I _swear_ I also recognize one of the voices a little bit...”

“Maybe it’s one of the people you escaped with?” Wallus suggested. “If you’re worried about something suspicious, I wouldn't be.”

“I mean, that’s not what I’m thinking _at all,_” Kamal insisted. “Like, it’s nice to hear a twist on something familiar, but at the same time really confusing because? Why is that _here??_”

“Well, they are hosting that news show, soooo we mite find out when that starts?” Boris suggested.

Kamal nodded. “Yeah, probably...”

\-----

A couple days had passed, and it was soon time for the public announcement of the upcoming Splatfest. Boris and Kamal were pretty sure the only reason they were given such an early heads-up about it was to prepare decorations if they wanted to join in, and of course Boris couldn’t contain himself. He’d bought a bunch of bright pink and vibrant aqua streamers, dragged out several large vases of similarly-colored flowers to put out front, and even had paper cutouts shaped like little cakes and ice cream cones to stick on the windows. Kamal had to admit, it was real cute how invested Boris was getting into this.

“If nothing else, this whole event is gonna make me hungry for both cake _and_ ice cream,” Kamal said. “I just wish they’d hurry up with the announcement. I’ve been seeing kids loitering around for a bit and I know they’ve got every right to be here, but they keep starin’ at me and it’s making me kinda nervous...”

“They mite just be stairing at ‘me’ instead," Boris said. “You look like an Ink-ling with a diffrent hair style, I am very obviously Not. We’re together so much that some-one’s line of sight would hit both of us at once.” He couldn’t help but laugh a little. “And also I am very tall. Its not hard for me too attract attention.”

“That’s a good point, yeah,” Kamal said with a nervous laugh. “Welp, I’m gonna take a bathroom break, you’ll let me know when the announcement comes on right?”

“Sure thing!”

Kamal made his way back upstairs, where the decoration had extended even into their apartment. It certainly brought a festive nature to the place. He passed several paper cutouts and pink and teal streamers on his way to the bathroom, and he pushed the door open without immediately turning on the light. Strangely enough, there were already two little dim lights where the bathtub would be, though the rest of the bathroom was still too dark to make out what their source was. It felt...ominous. “Uh, Boris?” Kamal called out, not knowing if he’d hear him that well from here but not wanting to take his eyes off the unknown bathtub thing. “Did you get a new decoration for the bathroom?”

“Whaaat?” Boris’s shout back was soon followed by his own footsteps up the stairs. “What was that about the bath-room?”

“There’s some weird glowing thing in here, maybe I should turn on the—” Kamal didn’t get a chance to finish that before a second, smaller pair of lights made themselves present. And they did so in a manner that resembled a pair of eyes opening in the darkness. He ran out of the bathroom, screaming in fear and colliding with Boris in his panic. “_Eyes!_” he half-shouted. “Eyes in the bathroom, there’s some kind of _creature_ in there!”

Boris grimaced. “All right, let me see this creachur,” he said, and made his way to the bathroom with a nervous Kamal following close behind. He entered the bathroom first, and Kamal realized he had once again forgotten that Boris’s own eyes glowed in the dark, just a bit. There was only a second or two to admire that before he flicked the bathroom lights on, revealing the bathtub invader.

Or rather, _invaders_. There were a pair of similar-looking fluffy animals in the bathtub, round and soft and covered in white and grey fur that resembled fancy tuxedos with suspenders, not nearly as threatening-looking as their reflective eyes had initially made them seem. The larger one was about the size of a sack of potatoes and had large yellow eyes, and the smaller one was about a third of the larger one’s size with beady eyes.

As soon as they were revealed, both of them started yeowling and the smaller one tried to scramble off. Boris shouted something that Kamal didn’t understand (he’d told him what it meant before several times, but it wasn’t a word that he used often so he always forgot, probably a swear) and quickly moved to grab the animals. “Notty boys,” Boris said once he had a grip on both of them. “Brat cats, braking in-too people’s houses. Shame on you ‘both’.” He turned to Kamal and smiled. “At least its not a burgaler or something, right?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, hehehe...” Kamal sighed with relief. “So where did these guys come from, anyway?”

“Oh, you didn’t here?” Boris asked, still trying his best to hold onto a very squirmy kitten. “These littol guys are supposeto be the Turf War judges.”

“...These fuzzy guys. Really?”

“Reelly,” Boris said. “Well, the announce-ment should be soon, we can check it out while we bring these boys do_OOWWWowowowow!_” The smaller of the cats had suddenly decided to bite down on his finger, sinking his little needle teeth into Boris’s flesh and causing him to spout out several more swears. “Okay,” he said, his voice strained. “The smol one is _definately_ the naughtie one.”

“Want me to try and take him, then?” Kamal asked.

“And risk you getting biten? Nope, I can man-age.” Boris gritted his teeth and instead offered the larger cat to him. “Big boy seems calmer, if you can ‘hold’ his wait you can take him while I deal with the trouble-maker.”

Kamal took hold of the larger cat, who seemed to practically melt in his arms as he did so, and they made their way back into the store where they’d brought down a little TV for the occasion. Boris gently tossed the smaller cat out the back of the store with a litany of more possible-swears just as the announcement began. There was a quick intro sequence with rhythmic record-scratching and a pair of women's voices singing briefly over a logo title card, and it soon faded out to reveal the owners of those voices.

“_Y’all know what time it is!_” the white-haired Inkling woman sitting in an egg-shaped chair on the left exclaimed.

“_It’s Off The Hook,_” the headphone-wearing woman sitting at the DJ booth on the right followed up, “_coming at you live from Inkopolis Square!_”

It was a good thing this cat was apparently able to land safely on his feet when dropped, because that was exactly what happened when Kamal saw the second half of this new musical duo. Her being an Octoling didn’t factor into his surprise in the slightest, he’d already gathered that from that brief sampling he’d heard of the music the two had put out. It wasn’t even the fact that she and an Inkling were apparently getting along so well, well enough to collaborate together like this and have friendly banter with one another. No, it was who the Octoling in question was. He _knew_ her. Not personally, but he at least knew _of_ her. “_Ida?!_”

“Ida?” Boris echoed, confusion on his face as he wrapped his cat-bitten finger. “But the sub-title says they’re names are Pearl and Marina.”

“Yeah, Marina Ida!” Kamal exclaimed. “She was pretty much a celebrity back home, though not exactly for the same thing she’s doing right now. Combat engineer, a freakin’ prodigy too, beefed up all the Great Octoweapons’ designs and built the Flooders...” He glanced up at Boris to just see him with a bemused expression. “Aaaand I _just_ realize you have absolutely _no_ context for what I’m talking about.”

“Oh, thatse no prob-lem, I think I understand the basic ideya,” Boris said. “She did a lot of inportant things and your people admired her four it.”

“Yeah, that’s the short version, I guess. She disappeared shortly after that thing with the Inkantation happened, though, and no one had a clue where she’d gone. Guess this is where she ended up.” Kamal couldn’t help but laugh. “I just can’t believe it,” he said. “All that worrying so many of us did over where she’d gone, and I’ve found her without even trying. Life’s funny like that.”

“May-be you should try to reconneckt?” Boris asked. “Reach ‘out’ two her or some-thing?”

“Reconnect?” Kamal shook his head. “Nah, we were barely acquaintances. I might’ve met her in person like once, and that woulda just been us passing by each other. Kanti probably knew her more than me if at all, they were both in the field, but me? Some rando in his 30s trying to bug a young celebrity like ‘_hey we both escaped from the same oppressive society, how ya doin’?_’ Don’t you think that’d be weird?”

“Good point, that mite seem creepey.” Boris thought for a bit, then asked, “Wait, whose Kanti again? Or is that to personnel?”

“Oh, my twin sister,” Kamal said. “Wish I knew what she was up to...damn, that’s really the only thing I regret about getting out. Might not ever see any of them again...”

Boris thought for a bit. “Yuo ‘know’, theirs every chance the rest of your family could es-cape too,” he said with a hopeful smile. “Think about it. _You_ got out, and made your way Here. Whose to say the others can’t do that two?”

“I’m pretty sure my parents can’t, probably too old for the journey,” Kamal said with a sigh. “Maybe my siblings, though. But I’d be lucky to see even just _one_ of ‘em again, let alone all five...”

Oh wow. Even though Kamal had mentioned them a few times before, a family of six kids still sounded _crazy_. Boris could only hope that the parents were much better to all of them than his had been to him, though of course it wasn’t hard to raise the bar on parental standards when it was in the damn ground. Not to mention that Kamal spoke very fondly of them in the few times he brought up family things, which he imagine wouldn't be the case if they had been terrible. “Well, may-be you’ll be that luckey some-day.”

\-----

The summer went by in good spirits for those at BoriBora Flora. Business had really picked up in the past month and a half, especially after the little side deal that Boris had set up with the turf war committee. He’d gotten the idea from that food truck that had popped up not too long before the first Splatfest (which there had been another since then, this time the teams were mayonnaise versus ketchup), the owner of which had given his blessing to take inspiration.

Floral accessories! Large ones to attach to someone’s headgear, and smaller ones to attach to one’s clothing, all varieties of which would provide any number of beneficial effect in a turf war match. The kids were going crazy for them! They mostly didn’t seem to notice the symbolism of the flowers that he would pair with each bonus, but they still appreciated them and that was all that mattered. He’d also started taking the best-looking of his old teeth and making necklaces from them as a bit of a joke, but despite the teeth being real and providing no benefit in matches they ended up taking off as well, especially from the edgier teens.

Of course, with this surge of customers, that meant supply had to be increased alongside the demand. Which in turn meant that more flowers had to be grown. Which was, surprisingly enough, bringing a problem that Boris never thought he would have to deal with. “We are...run-ing out of ‘room’ for new freinds,” he said one day, a mixture of disbelief and disappointment in his tone.

“Yeah, considering they’re starting to take over the apartment, I’m surprised you only just now noticed,” Kamal said with a nervous laugh. “Then again, we probably should’ve expected that to happen.”

“But everyone lovbes them!” Boris sighed. “And we just highered that nice delivery kid, too. I don’t want to dissa-point the customars by not have-ing lots of flowlers when they ‘need’ them...” He thought for a bit. “I womder...maybe I should find another place fore growing.”

“Probably.”

“I think I will!” Boris exclaimed, grinning proudly. “And I know ‘just’ the Place!”

\-----

“Sir, for the last time, the Kelp Dome is _not_ for personal growing purposes!”

A dejected Boris found himself escorted out of the Kelp Dome facilities by security for the fifth time that week. “Are you reeley sure we can’t come to some agree-ment?” he asked hopefully.

“Not a chance, pal,” one of the security officers told him. “This place is for agriculture, not horticulture, and it’s certainly not available for personal use. You’ll have to find somewhere else for whatever garden you’ve got in mind.” As the two of them released their hold on Boris, the one currently scolding him snatched something out of his hand. "And _theft_ on top of that!” he said, holding up the pilfered artichoke that he'd been trying to sneak out of the greenhouse unnoticed. “You’re lucky you’re non-violent, otherwise we would’ve gotten the actual police involved after the second time!”

Boris sighed, once again making his way back to his car. Well, it had been worth a shot, at least. Technically _five_ shots, but still. Even so, _now_ what was he going to do? He couldn’t think of many off-site places that would be good for growing his flowers, least of all any that he had easy access to...

Once he got home, the first thing Boris did was collapse onto the couch, taking care to avoid an errant iris. "Get kicked out again?” Kamal asked, to which he responded with a long, tired sigh. “I’m not the type of guy to say I told you so, but...”

“I know, I know,” Boris said. “Trust me, Ime not going to try a sixth time.” He covered his eyes with his hands and just...sat there, annoyed. “If only I could juste...make an-other room in the shope and have it some-how not take ‘up’ any space...”

“Yeah, that’d be super helpful.” Kamal thought for a bit, realizing that this idea sounded like something he’d already heard of before. “Wait, hang on a bit...” he said as he started going through his phone. “Yeah, this stage they had in the last Splatfest, the Shifty Station or whatever. It’s got a similar look to most of Octo Valley—I mean, makes sense, Ida apparently built the dang thing so she’s probably got that aesthetic still on her mind—so it looks like it’s outside but it’s all self-contained. Only question is how did those kids get in for matches?”

“The spon-points, I would ass-ume,” Boris chuckled.

“Haha, very funny.” Even with the snark, Kamal couldn’t help but follow that up with a little laugh of his own. “I guess the only way that we'd know is if we asked her ourselves. And if that’s the sort of thing that works, maybe she’d be willing to help with this? From what little I remember about Ida, she was taking on projects left and right just for the sake of keeping herself busy. Though that could’ve been the societal programming making the decisions for her...”

Boris grinned. “No harm in at-least asking, though, rite?” he asked. “Either ‘way’ it could be int-resting!”

“True.” Kamal shrugged. "But wait, do you even have her contact info?”

“...Nooooo...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geez, has it _really_ been a month and a half since I posted the last chapter? I guess I was just super into my regular universe post-canon stuff, hehehe. Anyway, there shouldn’t be too much left to this one, I’m thinking either one more slightly long chapter or two shorter ones, depending on how I’m feeling. That doesn’t necessarily mean the end of this AU, of course. Too many ideas swirling in my head!
> 
> Actually namedropping one of Kamal’s family this time (same family that showed up in my longer Habit-Bora Household fic because I lovbe them), as when I wrote chapter 2 of this, literally none of them were named at that point. I don’t even remember if I’d decided whether or not he was a twin in my stuff! And yeah, Bomb Rush Blush _does_ have Kamal’s name in it. Well, his surname anyway. “_Megeparapi gera weriweriweriweri **bora**_”... :3c


	8. MarXXa

“_Dear Marth—_”

“_Deer Maritha—_”

“_Deare Martina—_”

With a groan, Boris once again restarted the beginning of the email he’d been drafting. It hadn’t been too hard to get an address, given that Off the Hook had social media accounts that gave contact information for fan mail and business inquiry purposes. An email felt appropriate for this request. It felt like the perfect medium between the too-formal (and obviously much slower) traditional mailed letter and the too-casual and forced-to-be-brief-via-character-limits social media reach-out. Besides, he was admittedly a bit old-fashioned and needed the much larger space of a letter or email to put forth this idea with the care he felt it required.

The one hang-up he couldn’t get over was her name. It was so close to that of another woman he knew, someone he hadn’t seen in...twenty years or so, and had no intention of actively seeking out. But those two little letters kept getting mixed up in his mind and he couldn’t just leave that be to finish the rest of the email and come back to proofread it later. It was bad enough he often had to look over his writing three or more times if it was meant for others to read due to his unique writing style. The problem could probably be solved by just calling her “Ms. Ida”, but none of the duo’s social media gave her surname so he’d have to explain how he knew _that_...

“How’s the email coming?” Kamal asked as he came over from organizing some novelty flower pots. Boris didn’t answer, just sighing heavily. “That hard, huh?”

“I camt even get past the greating,” Boris said. “I keep type-ing the wrong name and it’s Bothering Me, morso then simple type-os should for reely stupid reasons.”

“Mind if I...?” Kamal began to ask, and they must’ve gotten to that point in their relationship where they could nearly tell what each other was thinking by now as Boris had scooted his chair away from the computer before he could finish. He leaned over the space between Boris and the desk and quickly typed in the correct name for him. “There ya go, now you don’t have to deal with it.”

“Thamk you, calla lily.”

Kamal could feel himself blushing. He still wasn’t used to this pet name, even though Boris had been using it off and on since they were “official”. Grinning and laughing a little to himself, he set about cleaning up the shop a bit in preparation for future customers while Boris continued with writing his email.

The bell at the door rang as their delivery runner entered, having just gotten back from dropping off another order. “Hey, Cos!” Kamal exclaimed. “How’d everything go this time?” Cosmos gave him a thumbs-up, probably smiling as well but whatever the lower half of their face was actually doing was hidden behind the face mask they always wore. They put a stack of notes on the counter, presumably recipient comments, then made their way over to Boris and lightly tapped on the counter to get his attention.

Boris looked up from the computer and smiled. “Oh, hel-lo there, Cosmos,” he said. “Did your mother ‘enjoy’ my gift?”

Cosmos nodded. “_She says thank you. Really liked the chrysanthemums._”

“Ime glad she’s doing well,” Boris said. “You let me knoe her flavorites when she’s allowed to re-turn home, alright? I’ll send her a moore personellized set.” Cosmos nodded again, then pointed at the computer with an inquisitive look. “Oh, I’m juste righting a little e-mail, it’s no bigg deal,” he told them. “I know, e-mails are a tiney bit old-fash-onned, but I’me a tinie bit old!”

“_Nearly 40, right?_”

“Hey!” Boris glared at them, but it was clear he wasn’t _actually_ upset. “Ime _thirty-seven!_”

“_That’s still nearly 40._”

Boris pouted. “Well you do’nt _have_-to ‘say’ it like thate...”

“By the way, Cos, you can go ahead and clock out if you want,” Kamal said. “I don’t think anyone’s gonna be putting in any delivery orders in the last two hours until closing, and we wouldn’t wanna make you stick around for longer than necessary given the whole allergy thing.”

Cosmos shook their head. “_I like hanging out with you guys. And you never know, there might be a surprise order or something._”

Kamal raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Okay, so I got ‘like hanging out’ and ‘surprise’,” he said, “so I take it that means you wanna stay because you like us and there might be unexpected orders?” Cosmos nodded, and Kamal breathed a small sigh of relief. “I’ll get to the point where I don’t need to keep asking for clarification eventually.”

“You’re still doing ‘good’, lily!” Boris exclaimed. “Getting better with learning sign evry-day. And it comes inn hand-y more times then you’d expect, pun not intented but appreciated.” He backed away from the computer and stood up, stretching his back as he did so. “I should probaly check on the roses,” he said. “I think the e-mail looks good, two. Would you mind proof-reading for me reel quick? I get too useto typeing weirbd for ‘fun’ and its hard to switch back some-times.”

“Sure thing, hon.” Kamal sat down at the computer while Boris went off to tend to the other flowers, giving the email a quick once-over. Seemed to be okay, a professional yet casual request for information about the Shifty Station, no weird misspellings aside from the wrong version of “its/it’s” being used a couple times...why’d he get the feeling he was being watched.

Kamal looked up briefly. Apparently that feeling was correct, as Cosmos was staring at him with the hints of a mischievous smile in their eyes. “Uhhhh...you need somethin’, squiddo?” he asked.

Cosmos pulled a small notebook out of their pocket and quickly jotted down a response, then tore off the page and handed it to him. “_nothing ‘lily’ ;3_”

“Very funny, Cos, real cute,” Kamal sighed as he crumpled the note and tossed it in the trash. “If you ever get yourself a romantic partner, I’ll be sure to try and find ways to embarrass you about it. Don’t think I won’t.” Cosmos shrugged and shook their head. He had no idea how to interpret that. Maybe they didn’t know how they felt about that kind of thing or something? That’s fair, of course, not everyone wants or needs that for their life. “Okay, then.”

He went back to the email, briefly forgetting where he’d left off from before though quickly finding the spot again due to its brevity. Yeah, all in all it looked good. He felt that Boris probably could’ve left out the mention of him and the Re-Inker X he’d stored in their safe, but maybe that was an attempt at making him look trustworthy with Octarian technology? Well, if that turned out to be a good “in”, then he guessed it was worth the shot.

_Surprise kiss on the head!!_

“Aaaaa, Boriiiis, not in front of the kid!” Kamal exclaimed, laughing. He could see Cosmos shaking a bit and hear an odd wheezing sound coming from them, and he figured that meant if they could make sound they’d be laughing too.

“Oh, I’m sorrey,” Boris said. He turned his attention to Cosmos. “Are you uncomforble with pee-dee-ay?” he asked. They shook their head, still having small laughter shakes.

“They’ve made it their mission to _embarrass us_,” Kamal said with a grin. “Classic teen threat.”

Boris couldn’t help but laugh himself. “You ‘both’ should know Ime imm-yune to embarrassment!” he exclaimed. “Do your wurst, flower scamp!”

He kissed Kamal some more, and as he started to turn so that he could reciprocate, some swanky saxophone music began playing from somewhere. They both glanced over to the source: Cosmos had apparently started playing the music on their phone, taking video of them smooching as they backed up toward the door. “Oh, come _on!_” Kamal shouted. “This ain’t a spectator sport!” They waved to them as they nudged the door open, then ran out the door, hopped onto their scooter, and rode off. “So much for sticking around for surprise orders, huh.”

“They probaly want to go ‘check’ on they’re mother again,” Boris mused. “Anieway, what did you think about my e-mail? Dose it read well?”

“Yeah, looks good,” Kamal said. “Switch up some uses of the wrong ‘its’ and you’re all set.”

“O-kay then, I’ll just get that sent off.” Boris leaned over to take care of that, further trapping Kamal in the chair with his bulk.

“Can I at least get up before you do computer stuff?” Kamal asked. “You probably want the chair back anyway.”

Boris chuckled. “Nope!” he exclaimed. “Yuo are now trap-ped in Hug Town!”

“Boriiiiis...!”

\-----

They figured that if Marina were to respond at all to Boris’s email, it would be with an email of her own. What neither Boris nor Kamal expected, however, was for her to make a personal appearance at the shop. Nevertheless, that is exactly what happened one afternoon not too long after the initial contact. The bell ringing at the door drew Kamal’s attention as he was manning the front counter while Boris was tending to the specialty flowers in the back. “Welcome to BoriBora Flora, how can I help y—oh!” He was half-way through the usual greeting before he realized exactly who had just come in. “Ida!” he exclaimed, then cleared his throat. “Er, I mean, Marina. What brings you here?”

“I got an email from this store’s owner,” Marina said. “Something about a project related to my Splatfest build? Have to admit, it got me a bit curious.” She gave Kamal a weird look. “Sooo you know my last name. I’m guessing you’re the former Octarian engineer he mentioned?” she asked, though her gaze made it seem that she wanted to say more.

“Yeah, that’s me, Kamal Bora.” He held out a hand to shake, and Marina took it. “So, uh, you want me to go get Boris for ya, since that’s who you’re here to see?”

“Oh, no need to rush him!” Marina insisted. “If he’s busy, I can wait.” She continued to look at Kamal with a mixture of confusion and recollection. “Bora... Bora... I _know_ that name, not to mention you look familiar... Have we met somewhere before?”

Kamal shook his head. “All I know about you is the name and the weapons development you’re responsible for, plus a little bit of the recent music stuff,” he said. “You might know my twin sister, though. Kanti Bora?”

“Yeah, I _do_ remember Kanti!” Marina exclaimed. “She was pretty cool, all things considered. Never knew she was a twin, but then again we never really talked about personal things like that with one another...”

It was at that moment when Boris popped his head back into the front of the store. His attention, of course, was immediately drawn to the new face in the room. “Oh, hel-lo Marisha!” he said happily. “Wait, no, thatse not it. _Marina_, there we go. Sorrey about that, hehe.”

“It’s fine, don't worry about it!” Marina said with a smile. “You must be Boris, then. So what was this project you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Well, its ab-out trying to find a ‘place’ to grow more flowers,” Boris explained. “We’ve been getting a Lot of Buisness lately, but we do not ‘have’ enough room to raise the supplie to meet costumer de-mands. But! You’re stage from the Splat-fest had such an _intrestting_ littol quirk, if what Kamal told me is true. Itse in its own little space that takes upp less space than it seems, right? That could be usefull for other purposes, may-be...”

Marina raised an eyebrow. “You...want me to make a greenhouse? With the same methods I used to make the Shifty Station?”

“Ah, not if your too busey with any-thing, of coarse!” Boris quickly added. “And not if you’re uncomforbal with the idea, either. It was just a ‘thought’, after all...”

“Actually, I think it sounds really interesting!” Marina said. “I might still have access to blueprints for a similar project some researchers were working on to try and make food production easier when I was underground. Kinda hard to grow plants with no access to the actual sun, y’know?”

“I do’nt ‘know’, but I can imagen,” Boris said with a bit of a sympathetic laugh. Kamal laughed too, though his was more nervous. He _absolutely_ knew all about that, of course.

\-----

“...so I was thinking, did you want these to look like regular greenhouse inside or like natural fields? Cuz I’ve got some preliminary sketches for both options if you wanna give ‘em a once-over...”

“Yuo can _do_ thate??” Boris gasped. “Just ‘make’ fields???”

Marina chuckled. “It’s surprisingly not that hard, you wanna go with that?”

“Oh, abso-_lutely!_”

\-----

"And that panel goes there, those cables over there, hoses for the sprinkler systems there..."

"Gotta get these screens to just the right setting or they'll never act like sunlight..."

It was a wonder to watch Marina get so involved in this project, and it was even _more_ of a wonder to watch Kamal do the same. This hyper-focused state was a side of his partner that Boris somehow hadn’t yet seen in the whole time they’d been together, and in all honesty he thought it was really cute. “So allove these tee-vee screens are meant two replace the skye?” he asked as he put some of the larger structure in place.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Marina said. “The image displays simulate the sky, and since we’re actively trying to incite photosynthesis we’re gonna have some mild UV radiation to mimic the sun's rays properly.”

“Lemme tell you something about how these were laid out back in the valley,” Kamal said. “If you lived in a place where they bothered setting up proper day-night cycles with these things, you were _lucky_. I remember going somewhere that was permanently night for work for like a week or so, and my sleep schedule was absolutely wrecked as a result for at least a month.”

“Uggghhh, that was always so awful!” Marina moaned.

Boris leaned uncomfortably against the framework he’d been setting up. He knew there was no way he could possibly understand what they went through. Sure, he’d been treated horribly by the people that were supposed to have kept him safe and happy, bullied by his peers while growing up, and lost his greatest passion for the longest time while being forced down a life path he had never wanted. But _he_ had still known open skies throughout his whole life. The real sun and moon and stars had been something he could afford to take for granted, the relatively consistent cycle of night and day something that was to be expected rather than something to wish for. And even though he had felt trapped his whole life, he had still been more free than he ever appreciated... “I...hope set-ing this upp isent makeing you feel...”

“Feel what?” Kamal asked. “Like I’m back in the valley?” He shook his head. “Not at all. I know that when these things are set up, I can decide whether or not I enter ‘em and also when I leave. And I know...I’m never going back. How could I? After how much my life has improved topside, and with you? And it’s not like I’m strong enough to get anyone else out...”

“Lily...” Boris smiled, and he could feel a bit of a tear forming in his eye. “I know you might not beleave it, but the fact that your hear means you are _plentie_ strong.”

“Boriiiis...”

Boris approached Kamal and pulled him into a gentle hug. He leaned down and gave him a little kiss on the forehead, though both of them were soon startled by a squeal from Marina. They both turned to see her watching their lovey moment, her hand barely covering the grin on her face. “Aww, so that _is_ the kind of ‘partners’ you said you were!” she exclaimed. “I figured as much, but I didn’t wanna pry in case you meant business partners rather than romantic...”

“Nah, we’re totally boyfriends,” Kamal said.

“You guys work well together,” Marina said with a little laugh. “Kinda wish I had something like that, myself...with a...certain someone...” The ends of her tentacles curled up as her face grew red. “I know she’s into girls too, but I don’t know if I’m her type, and I wouldn’t wanna make things awkward between us...plus, if I’m gonna ask, I’d want it to be the perfect moment, y’know? Something meaningful?”

“Well, if it makes yuo ‘feel’ better, I thimk if you tell-her you’re feelings, the moment will be special no matter what your doing at the time.”

“We literally confessed to each other over TV dinners.”

“Hehehe, we ‘did’!”

Marina couldn’t help but chuckle at this. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “Now then, should we get back to setting this up?”

“Oh, yeah, we probably should,” Kamal said. “We should probably grab some fresh drinks, too, stay hydrated while we work and all that.”

“Ive got it coveerd!”

\-----

The build had taken a couple months what with three separate enclosures and a need to have the environment in each just so, and Boris had to admit that even though his expectations had been quite high, the results of their efforts had more than exceeded them. He’d just finished transplanting the last of his favorite lilies into their new home, or at least the ones that weren't going to live with him and Kamal in the apartment, when he decided to take another look around. It was lovely. The colors of the sunset faded into a beautiful warm gradient overhead, and the way that they’d set everything up you couldn't tell it wasn’t the real sky unless you knew to look for the seams where the panels met, and even then you had to squint.

With a satisfied sigh, Boris let himself fall backward onto the ground, onto the soft natural turf they’d covered the floor of this greenhouse with. It was a nice little home for all his little friends. A nice little... “Habitat,” he mused, chuckling to himself. “I’ll thimk I’ll call these Habitats.”

He took the time to enjoy the serenity of the moment, then got up and dusted himself off before heading back. The transport system between the Habitats and the shop was pretty clever, a teleportation set-up kind of like the spawn points in the Turf War stages modified to take Boris’s lack of ink abilities into account. It was a bit of a weird transition, but it wasn't anything he couldn’t get used to. And it was set up right by the stairs, so he could just walk up to the apartment as soon as he got done. Which was what he decided to do, given that the shop itself was closed for the day. “So how’s everything in there?” Kamal asked as he saw Boris’s head rising from the stairwell.

“They’re all verie happy, and so am I,” Boris said with a smile. “I camt believe how wonderflul this all turned out! Ime going too have two let Marisha know how its go-ing.”

“Marina, you mean?”

“Yes, but she sayed she liked the nick-name.” Boris noticed that Kamal seemed a bit...frowny? No, it was more complex than smiley or frowny. “Are yuo okey, calla lily?”

“Huh?” Kamal shook his head a bit, trying to loosen up his thoughts in a sense. “Everything’s fine, just kinda...is it weird that I’ve missed hanging around other Octolings?" he asked. “Even if I don't know ‘em all that well?”

“Not at all,” Boris said. “If their were more Shark-lings around hear I would wamt to say hel-lo at the verey least.”

Kamal sighed. “I’m just in a missing-my-family mood again, I guess,” he said. “Think Marina was feeling the same way, I told her about the refugees that got out through Mt. Nantai and she said she wanted to check how everyone there is doing. Turns out that’s where she ended up after she escaped too, can you believe that?”

“May-be it’s just a goode spot, hehe.”

“I guess.” Kamal stretched and stood up from the couch. “Anyway, it’s my turn to make dinner tonight, right? I should probably get started on that, then.”

“Alright. Let me know if you would ‘like’ help.”

“Thanks, babe.”

As Kamal made his way into the kitchen to start dinner, Boris decided to take the time to send a thank-you message to Marina. Sure, it wasn’t exactly a thing people did anymore, but then again he was still kind of old-fashioned. Plus, it would give him an opportunity to ask her something real quick. And he couldn’t get Kamal to proofread it, either. It was a surprise.

_Hel-lo Marina! Thamk you once agen for helping me with this project! Ive gotten all the flowers transfered into the Habitats (thats what I've decided too “call” the green-houses) and they Love Them!!! I hope this isent asking two much but Kamal told me you wamted to check out the others at Nantai. If you go their, can you ask if anyonme else named Bora is there too? Hes been miss-ing his fambily very much and I think he would appreshiate hearing about them at the verie least._

_\--Boris H._

_P.S. sorrey for weirb spellings, I right like this for “fun” and I camt get Kamal to proof-read and make sure I spellt evrythimg write for Obvious Reasons ; - )_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boris can call the canon Splatoon characters by their Russian localization names either by accident or as cute nicknames, as a treat. :3c I was kinda wanting this to be the last chapter (though not the end of this AU, I’ve got more ideas!!), but the wrap-up I had planned started to feel like it’d be better for a short epilogue rather than sticking it on the end of this chapter so that’s what I’ll be doing.
> 
> Also yes, I do enjoy a little Pearlina if you couldn’t tell by Marina’s pining. _Off the Hook said wlw rights dammit!!_


	9. A Small Family Reunion

The woman made her way through Inkopolis Square, taking care to keep her tentacle-hair hidden under the hat she’d been wearing. Not that anyone seemed to notice it was different. Inklings weren’t exactly the most observant people, or maybe they just didn’t care as much about things like that as she’d been led to believe. Either way, she had more important things on her mind.

She glanced up at the signage on the front of the store. “BoriBora Flora, huh?” She chuckled to herself. Of course this would be the place. It even had his name in it. Unable to hide her grin, she pushed the door open, a bell chime announcing her entrance.

Boris was alone in the shop at the moment, taking care of the flowers in the back when the bell rang. “Just a min-ute!” he called out. He tried to finish up what he was doing quickly so he could greet whoever had just come in. He had a bit of hope it was Kamal back with lunch, but considering it hadn't been that long since he left he doubted it would be him. Quickly brushing the soil off his apron, Boris made his way into the front to see a familiar face in unfamiliar circumstances. “Back so soon?” he asked with a grin. “Anmd with a nice new out-fit, it looks goode on you!”

The woman laughed, holding up her hands and shaking her head. “Okay dude, I know who you probably think I am, but I’m ninety-ish percent sure I’m not him,” she insisted. “Thanks for confirming this is the right place, at least.”

Boris’s confusion was thankfully brief. Sure, the woman’s face looked almost identical to Kamal’s at first glance, but the marks around her eyes were differently shaped and the voice was off, and he didn’t think her outfit was really his style. Besides, how could he have gotten back so quick anyway? “Yuo know Kamal, then?” he asked. “Your his family??”

"Dude." The woman motioned to her face. "You _literally_ thought I was my bro for a second."

“I guess I ‘did’,” Boris chuckled. “Sorrey about that.”

“It’s happened more times than either of us can count, don’t worry.” She took off her hat, letting her tentacle-hair fall down and making the difference between her and her brother more distinguishable. Hers was styled in a sort of side-flip if that was the right term, and while he knew they could change this whenever they felt like it, the hints of ink near the ends were a bright red rather than the soft blue that Kamal preferred. “So, you mind telling me when he’s coming back?”

“Uhhh, dipends on how long the food takes,” Boris said. “Would you like to ‘wait’ for him?”

“Wait, no, I’ve got a better idea!” she exclaimed, slamming her hands on the nearby counter. “There’s like a shopping center near here, right? You can bring him there and me and Jazz can meet up with you, make it a real good surprise!”

“Oh, that sounds reallie good!” Boris said. “Lily dose enjoy going to the Reef from time-two-time. How does to-morrow at 5 soumd?”

“Sounds great, see you guys then.”

As the woman waved and turned to leave, Boris couldn't help but feel he was missing something crucial. Something that really shouldn't be that hard to figure out... “Hold on, before you go, I neeto ask yuo some-thing!” She briefly turned back to see what he needed. “...witch sister where you again?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Kanti,” she told him before making her exit proper. “The twin.”

\-----

“So remind me again where we’re headed so soon after work?” Kamal asked as Boris led him along.

“The Reef!” Boris exclaimed, trying his best to contain the skip in his step so that Kamal could keep up better. "Thought you mite like a nice dinner ‘out’ to-night!”

“Aaaand why did you insist on bringing me there blindfolded?” It wasn’t a particularly good blindfold, either, it was just non-wired floral ribbon made from the darkest material Boris could find in their stock and even then he could still see the outlines of passers-by through it. That was probably for the best; even if they were just going a couple blocks, it would be bad if they got separated and Kamal got hurt trying to find him again without ruining whatever surprise he had in store.

“Well, if I ‘told’ you, it woulbdn’t be a surprise, _would_ it? : - )” Boris laughed a little, then turned to make sure Kamal was doing okay. “Ime not pulling too hard, am I?” he asked.

“No, you’re fine,” Kamal said, “though I am worried about us getting weird looks. People might think you’re trying to abduct me or something.”

“We’re al-most their, lily, domt worrie! And if we do get stopped, you can take that ‘off’ and lett them know it’s aaaall okaye.”

“Somehow that doesn’t inspire a lotta confidence, but I trust you.”

They soon arrived at the Reef, and if anyone had been giving them weird looks for the situation they were in, Boris didn’t notice and Kamal obviously never saw them. He began to lead him near a fancy fountain fixture, where he saw the two they would be meeting already sitting at the bench nearby. “All-right, we’re hear!” he called out, getting the attention of the women and waving them over with his free hand.

“Why’d you yell that?” Kamal asked. “Is it related to the surprise?”

“Yes, leave the blind-fold on four juuuust a little bit more.” Boris took Kamal’s hand in both of his, and he could barely contain his excitement to see how happy Kamal was going to be. “I have a quick queston for you first,” Boris said. “How like-lee are you to crye when your super-happie?”

“Uhhhh...I don’t know...” Kamal said, concerned. “Why do you ask?”

“Cuz I didn’t bring any tissues for your waterworks, ya big _nerd!_”

Kamal’s breath hitched when he heard that voice. A voice he hadn’t heard in over a year. It already felt like his hearts were going to burst. “Can...can I...I’m gonna take this off...” Without waiting for a response he removed the blindfold and blinked the sudden harsh light out of his eyes. Once he could see properly again, the sight before was something he thought he’d never see again. “Kanti?” he choked out. “Jasmine...?”

“You miss us as much as we missed you?” Jasmine asked with a smile.

“_AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!_” Kamal ran to his sisters and pulled them both into a tight hug, screaming while crying tears of absolute joy. “Why are you guys here?!” he shouted. “Wait, no, _HOW_ are you here?!”

“Same as you, dude!” Kanti exclaimed. She was laughing, and though it may have just been his imagination, Kamal could swear she was crying as well.

“Yeah, Kanti basically turned into a one-woman Octoling rescue service and helped Lin and I reach topside,” Jasmine explained. “Then we met up with Ida and she said you were working at a flower shop in Inkopolis, so of course we had to catch up—oh my god, it’s been so LONG!”

“I’ve missed you guys so _muuuch!!_” He then turned to Boris, who had the biggest grin on his face. “How long did you know?!” Kamal shouted, still teary-eyed but his crying having become more like ecstatic laughter. “You planned this, how _long_ have you been planning this?!”

“Since yes-terday,” Boris said. “Kanti came wile you were on the luncch run, this was all her ideya. Though I miiiight-have also...‘asked’ Marisha too ask ab-out your fambily...”

“Oh my god, Boriiiiis!” Kamal cried. “You didn’t have to..._aaaaaaa!!_”

“Youve done so much four me allready though!” Boris insisted. “Yuo helped my ‘dreams’ come true and I just...I wamnted two re-turn the flavor in some way.” He held his arms out, tears starting to form in his eyes as well. “Laydees, can I joinb the hug?”

“Sure thing, big guy, get in here!”

Boris gladly obliged, his long arms able to hold all three of them at once. The four of them stood there for a while, some crying and and some laughing, and all of them just enjoying each others’ presences. Were people staring? Probably. Did any of them care? Absolutely not. They were too wrapped up in the moment.

It was Kamal who eventually said something to change their focus. “We’re, uh, we’re probably blocking some walkways like this,” he said. "You wanna go get something to eat?”

“Oh yeah, dinner sounds great,” Kanti said. “You guys pick a place, you know the area better than we do.”

“Their’s the pizzaria we ordered from the night me and Kamal met, they’re all-ways good!” Boris suggested. “They even added an All You Can Withstand Buffet.”

“Don’t you mean ‘all you can eat’?” Kamal asked.

“I sayed what I ‘meant’, and what I ‘meant’ was the Challenge Verson.”

“All-you-can-eat sounds amazing right now,” Jasmine said with a grin. “Especially considering I’ve been eating for two for a good bit now.”

It took more than a couple seconds for her statement to register properly in Kamal's mind. “Wait, WHAT?” he shouted. “You’re having a kid? _Really?!_ Oh my god, am I really gonna be an uncle?”

Jasmine nodded, her grin growing into a full smile. “They’re the main reason we wanted to escape in the first place,” she said. “I’m just so glad our baby’s gonna get to grow up under a real sky.”

“Oh, if I’d known you where preganant, I would of been more gentle with the hugging,” Boris chuckled. “Would’nt want to ‘splat’ the baybee before their hear!” Jasmine thought that comment was hilarious, and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing way harder than she probably should have.

As they made their way to the pizzeria, Kanti and Jasmine were still admiring their surroundings. “So what’s with all the posters of the little space dude and sword guy?” Kanti asked. “Some kind of event or something?”

“Yeah, it’s this month’s Splatfest,” Kamal said. “Team Sci-fi against Team Fantasy. Those squid kids love throwing ink to settle silly opinion debates, but it’s all in good fun.”

“Ash would _love_ that!” Jasmine exclaimed. “He’s still into all those books and games and such. You remember when he got really obsessed with this book series about humans that was older than him?”

“And Ash is one of you’re brothers, right?” Boris asked. “Is he here two?”

Kanti shook her head. “Not yet.” She nudged Kamal and winked. “Don’t you worry, though,” she said. “I’ve taken it upon myself to help more Octolings make it to the surface. If anyone else in our family wants to escape, you can bet your ass I’ll be there to make sure they get out safe.”

“Kanti, you’re literally a lifesaver.” Kamal smiled. “Someday we’ll all be together again, under the blue sky...” He took hold of Boris’s hand and squeezed it gently, as more hugs would have them blocking foot traffic again. “And maybe some of us will add to the family along the way.”

Boris looked down at Kamal, a small smile on his own face as well. “Are you talkimg about Jas-mine’s babey or...?”

“It’s you, Boris, of _course_ it’s you!” Kamal laughed. “You’re the newest member of my family! At least as far as I’m aware.”

“Awww, calla lilyyyy...” Boris squeezed Kamal's hand back. “When we get too the resterant, I have a kissy four you!”

“Get a room for your romance mush, boys!” Kanti jokingly shouted.

Even with her playful jab, the mood couldn’t be higher for any of them. Kamal had his old family back, at least some of them. Kanti and Jasmine had sun and freedom. Boris had further acceptance into a family that actually seemed like they cared about each other, as well as the love of his life being overjoyed at the family reunion. Life was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And as they say at the end of a particularly unlucky Salmon Run shift, that’s a wrap. :3 Well, for this story anyway, I do plan on doing more with this AU. Some one-shots here and there, maybe a few more multichapter things, and I do really wanna do some things that focus on other characters in this AU as well. I’ll have to brainstorm some more stuff along those lines, hehehe.
> 
> Before I forget, Jasmine belongs to Tav (pollyannam3)! Her husband Lin is in this AU too but he didn’t come to the meetup, and even though octo-Vio hasn’t happened yet at this point you can bet I’ll find an excuse to draw lil baby blobby octo babey at some point :3c I honestly don’t know if Inklings or Octolings having kids would work anything like how humans do given that afaik regular octos in our world lay a buncha eggs in a hole that the mom guards for a while (I’m not sure about how regular squids baby atm), and Nintendo’s probably never gonna address that lest some creeps be creepy, but I wanted to hint at Vio happening and making a reference to the human process was the only way I could think of doing so hehehe.


End file.
